Just An Obsession
by bwayphantomrose
Summary: He could never love her. He had never been taught to love. How was that he could so intensely crave something he had never felt before the arrival of Christine Daae? She was a terrifying obsession. Leroux-BASED. E/C.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is Leroux-BASED, not a retelling or any sort of continuation.**

**Be very open-minded when you read this. That is my only request. I don't want to get millions of reviews saying, "Ooh, they're so OOC!" I am borrowing the characters and BASING them off the book, so I may do what I please with them. Hahahaha.**

**So, erm... Reviews? **

.

I do not love Christine Daae.

I cannot love like others can, I cannot feel that emotion that I see dripping throughout Parisian society. Unfortunately, I was born without that piece, just another fault in my extensive collection.

However, I am a master in the art of obsession. When I fixate on things, I devote my entire being to it in an indescribable way. I can tell you now that I am obsessed with Christine Daae. I have been obsessed with her ever since I first heard her wavering note outside her dressing room, ever since I heard her crying pearly tears, ever since I saw her precious face looking out over her audience.

.

Looking at her, she is sound asleep in the little bed I have provided for her. She comes down here several times a week for lessons, you see, and I give them to her most excellently. We are a good team, Christine and I. Together, we are beautiful.

Apart from her, I am not.

When Christine is with me, I _feel_ beautiful. I feel as though there is someone who can truly accept me, like there is someone who I am level with, even if it is only on a musical degree. Poor Chriustine… She is beautiful even apart from me. When she sleeps, she is always twisted on her stomach, holding her pillow tightly to her face.

It isn't fair, but I do not resent her for it. Instead, I cherish her, and only become more obsessed with her.

I watch her sleep.

.

"Christine," I breathe, when I sense her in the doorway, watching me play. She watches me with her solemn eyes, and I set down my violin and bow and extend my arm towards her. "Come sit by me."

"You could have kept playing," she says as she obeys my command. "I want to listen to you."

"As you wish, as always," I murmur, and I lift the violin back up and continue playing. I think, only with Christine, could I be so comfortable with her watching so intently. Her eyes do not flutter away from my hand. I wonder if it is me she is enthralled with, or just the instrument?

"Erik," she says in a sweet, soft voice. "Can you teach me how to play?"

I give her a look while I continue moving my bow. "The violin is a very gawky, unlady-like instrument. Surely you do not wish to subject your pretty hands to such a task."

She looks disappointed. "But it's so lovely to hear."

"I will always be around to play for you," I say in a quiet voice, curious to hear how she will take it.

She hesitates for a moment, and then she smiles.

.

Let me tell you this, that I am a man. I am just a man! I have no unnatural superpower, I am not immune to the charms of a woman, and I grow flustered very easily. It's just that I do not mingle around people and I have never found a woman that I find particularly irresistible. Until I met Christine, of course. I do not understand what it is. She is pretty, of course, but there are other pretty women out there. Her voice is stunning, but she is not the only one in this world who can sing. I do not understand my obsession with her.

I wish it could go away. I want to be able to wake up one morning and feel that she doesn't matter. In a way, I want her to do something terrible so that I can despise her and she will not matter.

It is just so damned _frustrating _to feel so dependent on someones thoughts, opinions, and actions. I follow her like a child searching for sweets. She is so young, like a child herself, and it is insufferable to be so entirely in her thrall.

.

She improves every day with her lessons. Her voice is growing stronger and she is fixing little things that makes her tone so much more polished.

"I am very pleased with you," I tell her one evening. "It is time for you to go back up."

She is blushing, flattered by my compliment, but her brows come together when I mention going back up. "I hate being in the chorus."

"You must start somewhere," I say unsympathetically.

"I have always been in the chorus. If I have made so much improvement, then why am I still in the chorus?"

"Surely you do not expect to be the new prima donna, after only a few weeks of lessons?" I say in a clipped voice. I will not allow the girl's head to grow big, because I simply detest arrogant people. "You are very, very young. Much too young. You must be patient."

Her face is crestfallen, and I love how she looks when she is disappointed. Her eyes are so sweet and her lips pouch out like a baby's. There is nothing about that girl that I do not worship. She is like my favorite doll.

She sighs. "I just do not like it up there. I feel so… insignificant."

I laugh, because I know that feeling all too well. "Stop thinking about the rest of the world, Christine, and think about yourself. Go on back up, and you may come back this weekend."

I expect her to brighten up, but she still looks mopey.

.

She is sobbing uncontrollably in her room when I go to pick her up the next time. It panics me to see her like this, and I do not know what to do.

"Girl, what are you crying about?" I demand instantly, searching for any physical harm on her body. She says something in reply, but it is so completely incoherent that I am not even sure it is French. "Stop this right now," I say sharply, uncomfortable with this feeling of watching her cry right in front of me. "Stop at once or I will not give you a lesson today."

She tries to cease, but she continue to make little gulping noises and unattractive sniffles.

I am agitated now, not sure why I am so acutely bothered by her show of emotion. "Get up off the floor and come on. I cannot linger here all day."

She follows me down and we have our lesson, but her voice is muffled by the mucus in her nose and throat. Impatient, I dismiss her to her room to settle down for an hour, but when I press my ear to the door later, she is crying again.

.

She picks moodily at her food for dinner. "Why do you never eat with me?" she asks in a wounded voice.

"Because then I would have to take off the mask." It is in obvious answer, therefore a stupid question.

"Why are you hiding your face from me?"

"Because I am very ugly."

"Why must we have lessons down here? Can you not teach me upstairs? There are plenty of rooms and fine instruments."

"I like in down here," I snap. She still does not seem to recognize my tone. If she asks another question, I will surely snap.

"Do you teach anyone else? Why just me?"

"_Damnit, _Christine!" I yell, very angry now. She looks up, petrified. "What is this ridiculous interrogation? Do you have to nit-pick every little thing I choose to do? It really makes you very difficult to deal with!"

I storm off to my room for some quiet. Hell, she is crying a_gain._

_._

I watch her sleeping and muse that she looks even prettier with tear tracks down her face. I briefly consider making her cry more often before bed so I can see those lovely, glittery marks.

For nearly two months now, this has been going on, and she has never awakened once. For some reason, I wish she would.

.

I do not even know the name of the show—God knows I do not enjoy opera very much—but it was one where all of the women seem to be wearing as little clothes as possible. Only their essentials are bound in fabric, and the rest of their body is hidden only by sheer, lavender lace that cascades from their neck to their toes in a sweeping motion. I enjoy this quite a bit and love to watch them, their bodies moving to the steady thrust of the music, but it is not until Christine came out that I was genuinely _moved._

It is not difficult for a man to bring himself to pleasure by using imagination, but this is the first time I am aroused by a singular human being. She is beautiful. She is like a giant doll. I am so suddenly aware of every heartbeat throughout my body and the nerves on my neck and fingers. I watch her move and I grip the sides of the chair painfully.

I watch her for as long as I am able, and then I excuse myself to go back to my home. There are some things that just cannot be done in public.

.

My ardent reaction to Christine sends me into a haze. I am confused by it, humiliated by it, and desperate to discover more about it. When I bring her down next, she seems to be in a better mood than last time, but still vaguely out of it.

"Christine," I say sternly. "You have not been yourself lately." _Neither have I._ "Is something the matter?"

I do not know why I should even care, but I would simply prefer her tell me so I do not feel bothered by my wondering.

"Oh... no, of course not," she lies.

"Your face has fallen. Tell me why you are upset, or you shall have no more lessons."

She looks greatly bothered by this. "Oh, please Erik, I am not upset! Please do not discontinue the lessons."

I frown at her, not convinced.

"I just..." She bites her lip. I have no patience for hesitation. If everyone hesitated before they did everything, nothing would ever get done. "I just feel..."

"Out with it."

She looks up at me with big, doe-eyes. "...Confused."

I frown at her again. Apparently, this will be a matter I am expected to delve into. "Confused about what?"

She is blushing. It makes her look more like a doll. I am wondering what she is thinking. I tell you, I am obsessed with her. I just cannot wish enough to invade all aspects of her life.

"Christine, I swear, I shall grow very angry-"

"Us," she says in a small voice.

"Us?" I repeat, now confused myself.

"Yes," she says, not looking at me.

"I do not understand. There is nothing confusing about us. I am myself, and you are you."

"But I do not _know_ you," she persists. "You will not show me your face or see me any time upstairs, but you only come and give me lessons down here. I am not allowed to talk about anything but music, but you seem to grow bored with my conversations. You tell me I am better than anyone else, but that I must remain in the chorus. And sometimes I feel you are angry at me... and that makes me very sad."

I am aghast at her feelings. I did not know the simple girl was capable of so many emotions. "Christine, none of that matters. All that matters is that you continue to do what I tell you. Understand?"

Her eyes are filling with moisture, but we both pretend otherwise. "Yes," she says softly.

.

I am about to go into her room to watch her that night, but her light is still lit and I here little movements, so I know she is not in bed yet. It sounds like the scratching on parchment, and I must know who she is writing to. I must know everything about her.

I only stood there for a few minutes before the door opened. I sprang back in shock, my temper rising at her intrusion, even though I was the one intruding. However, she does not seem alarmed by my presence. She is wearing nightclothes that I have never seen before, that I did not buy her. She must have brought them down herself. They are... there is no other word to describe them other than mouth-watering. I can very nearly see through them. I have never seen a real woman unclothed before. My body has not caught up with my mind yet, but I know momentarily it will, and then I shall be in trouble.

"Erik," she says, and her voice is very flat and her eyes are very dead. There is something frightening about this Christine. Something about her is different.

"Christine," I say, calming my heart. I want to giggle.

"Are you doing anything?" she asks in that odd voice.

"No."

"Oh." She sways for a moment. "Good. Come here."

She turns and heads back into her room, and I have no choice but to follow. She has pulled the sheets back and goes and sits on the edge of the bed.

"Come closer."

I obey again. I think she has me under some sort of spell.

"Good," she breathes, in a dead, wispy sort of voice. I am still feeling alarmed, but I am anxious to figure out what she is doing.

Hands hardly trembling, no fear in her movements, she reaching up to my shirt and peels it away from my skin. I leap back at once. "What are you doing?" I practically scream at her, my voice strangled like a violent whisper. She has not even blinked.

"Come closer, Erik, please," she says.

I laugh. Perhaps I am losing my mind.

Her hand drifts up to the top of her nightgown. She pauses. "Do you want to see?" she asks.

Panic and excitement rides up in me like a wave and I take a step back as my heart begins its frantic pounding. I do not know what the hell she is doing or what she is asking of me - all I know is that I want to get away, touch myself, and pretend that this has never happened.

Her lips pouts. "I am pretty, am I not?" she asks. "Tell me I am pretty, Erik."

"Very pretty," I recite at once.

She smiles, like I have taken a great weight off her shoulders. "I am glad you think so," she says in a fluttery voice.

"Christine," I say in a very stern voice, marred somewhat by the adrenaline running through my veins. "Tell me what is the matter with you right now."

Her face screws up as if she is about to cry, and then she holds her arms out to me. "Do you not want me?" she whispers. "Doesn't anyone want me?"

I am trying so hard to not look at her in her sheer dress, and my eyes fall on her little table, where there is a pair of large shears that I have around for repairing little things. These are mine, and I do not appreciate her taking my things. This hardly seems like the moment to bring this up, but I cannot stop staring at them and I cross over to see them and find the pieces of note she must have been writing next to it.

It only takes me about three seconds to figure out this is a _suicide _note.

I snatch it up and turn to her, breathing heavily. _"What is this?_" I demand, feeling like I might explode.

She is crying in earnest now. "Nobody loves me," she sobs, clutching herself. "Nobody cares about me. Nobody wants me to sing. I just don't matter to anyone. It makes no difference whether I'm here or not. I just want one last opportunity to feel like _somebody_ wants me!"

I slap her as hard as I can across the face, I cannot stop myself. "So you think, I might as well seduce Erik, because I have _nothing else left to lose_. Is that all I am to you? After all I've _done_ for you?" I am so angry I cannot control myself. I want to hit her, I want to hurt her, I have no way to channel my emotions.

"I just wanted you to love me," she bawls.

In a surge of fury, I rip the mask from my face and grab her harshly. "Really? This is what you want to love you? This was who you wanted to spend your last night with?"

Christine lets out a hoarse cry at the sight of me, but she seems unable to close her eyes or turn away from me. I have never ever had her this close, and with my mask off, my face is so much more sensitive to everything around me. I have an unexplainable urge to be closer to her, to feel her face. Without thinking, I press my lips to hers.

It is a strange feeling. I do not understand why something as simple as this brings me a rush of new emotions. I feel... as if I am struggling not to cry, and I am _not_ a man who cries. It is overwhelming, this rise of pressure in my chest. I pull away, dazed.

"Erik?" Christine says, as if she was not bothered in the least by what just happened. "You want me alive, right? You want me to stay here?"

"Of course," I say, still feeling odd.

She puts her head against me and doesn't move for a long time.

.

I took the shears, of course, and stayed with her the entire night. How selfish of her, to think that she could escape life so easily. I need her. I am obsessed with her. She makes me complete. I wish I could love her, like other men could. Perhaps then she would understand how much I need her. Perhaps then she could explain to me why I am still shaking and close to tears because of her thoughtless kiss.

.

I keep her with me for longer than usual, and she does not object. She is much quieter now, and I watch her much closer. Nothing changes in our lessons whatsoever, and for that I am grateful. Unnecessary drama should always be kept out of music.

"I do not want to be in the chorus when I go back up," she tells me firmly one afternoon.

"I shall see what I can do," I allow. She must never be upset anymore, I know that now.

She smiles at me, so beautiful. I just feel nicer when I am around her, and the feeling increases ten-fold when I see her smile like so. "Thank you so much. For everything."

.

When she is gone, I am petrified. I cannot see her, and I cannot watch her, and therefore I cannot know if she is safe. What if she is crying in her room again, feeling as though she has nothing to live for? I have already placed a very threatening note in the manager's office that will allow Christine an audition to be considered for mid-sized roles. How else can I help her?

It is because of all these rational fears in my head that I finally break down and head to the surface. I quickly created a sheath in the wall that I placed in with glass, directly behind the mirror in her room. It takes me quite a bit of time, and I must do it while she is not present, but when it is complete, I know I now have her under my gaze at all times.

It makes me feel much better, indeed.

.

I bring her back down and she is all smiles.

"Erik, guess what?"

"I could never guess, dear," I say warily.

"I am not in the chorus anymore! I am allowed to audition for roles in every show!"

"Oh, how wonderful!"

"So I must come down here much more often so I can do better."

More time with my lovely pet? How could I resist?

.

Christine practically moves in with me. Now free from the numerous choral rehearsals, she has ample free time that she evidently chooses to waste with me. I am not entirely sure why... but I am not complaining.

"I am so thankful for you," she tells me over dinner. I am starting to feel a little unnerved by all her little compliments. I have never encountered anyone who is so genuinely nice to me before- and after seeing me without my mask, no less.

"I am glad," I say stupidly.

She smiles for a little, but then she looks down at her plate, pushing things around. It definitely looks like she has something on her mind. I internally reflect on whether or not I am anxious enough to prompt her, but before I can decide, she has already formulated out her words.

"You know my father died quite some time ago, and my mother even before that," she says, looking down. "And even when Papa was still alive, he was very sick and usually resting, so I was always by myself. I have always been by myself. I always though I never minded at all, but now being with you, I realize how lonely I was."

I do not know what to say to any of this.

"I _like_ being with you," she admits. "I feel better when I am around you. You make me feel different."

"I have never felt about anyone the way I feel about you," I murmur. She beams at me.

I am bewildered by this. Never in my life have I experienced someone like this. To think it almost seems like she is accepting me... If only I could love her like a real man, I would propose to her right now and keep her with me and make her happy.

But I am not a real man. And I cannot love.

.

She becomes incessantly curious about everything that I am doing when I am not with her. She follows me, most especially at night, wanting to know exactly what I am up to. If I am reading, she wants to read next to me. If I am playing the piano, then she is going to sing, no matter how late it is. It is flattering in a way, and I find myself growing so accustomed to her attentions that I am getting quite worried about what will happen to me when she goes back up. I assure myself with my mirror, knowing I can still watch her, but for some reason it does not completely fill the hole in me.

.

She comes into my room one night, without knocking and completely unannounced. I am dejectedly lying across my bed, simple moping for no particular reason, when I see her lithe shape suddenly emerge into my line of sight.

"Christine! What are you doing?"

"You said earlier that it is about time for me to go back up, and I can't stop thinking about what that might mean," she complains, sidling closer to me.

I cannot fathom how this could be at all unclear to any mind. "It means you need to go back up tomorrow lest your managers grow suspicious."

"Do you _want_ me to leave?" she whispers.

I must be very careful with my very fragile girl. "Of course not, Christine," I sigh. "But you must go back up sometimes. It is where you live."

"I would rather live down here," she says, so quietly that I am almost sure I did not hear her.

"Beg pardon?"

"I would..." Her eyes are sparkling with tears, and I have that strange surge of emotion I cannot place. "I want to be with you. I hate it up there! I'm lonely! I just feel sad and upset for no reason, but with you, I feel so much better... You saved me, and I owe you that... And now when I am around you, I just feel so much more comfortable with you. I love you!"

I am shellshocked. I cannot formulate words to speak. My whole life has proven to me that I am unlovable and despised by all of society, and now this? I feel... like everything has ceased to exist. My mouth fumbles.

"Christine, a proper lady... that is-" I gesture pointlessly at nothing and pretend I am searching for words. "- I am afraid I don't understand at all, I-I am very glad that you are happier here, but..."

Real fear shines on her face now. "But I thought," she says in a nervous voice. "After all you have done for me, surely you love me too?"

I move my mouth wordlessly.

She is done with prancing around her topic. "Erik, do you love me?" she asks.

I can only stare at her in horror.

Because how can I tell my favorite girl, my obsession, my crowning jewel, my angel of music, that I cannot love?

.

She sobs hysterically on her bed while I stroke her hair and gabble nonsense to her. "You have no idea how much I care about you, or how I feel about you. When we sing together, it is so beautiful and so natural. There is something about us, I know that, you know that. I need you so badly, and I will always be here for you. I will _always_ be here, Christine, we will be together forever-"

I _want_ to love her so badly it hurts. But I have no idea how the hell to do it!

.

I am afraid to send her up to the surface, but she assures me bluntly that she will not attempt to take her own life.

"You had better keep that promise forever," I warn her.

"For you, I will," she promises.

.

Since I have refused violin lessons for her, she takes up with the notion of piano lessons, and I cede with good grace. I love watching her hesitant fingers play across the keys. There is something endearing about the way she tries to please me. She is a very quick learner, and having the advantage of already being able to read music makes her swift at her training. She is irreplaceable, so infinitely precious to me.

"Am I doing it well?" she questions.

"Very well," I tell her.

"It sounds so much better when you play. Smoother."

"I have had many more years of practice, darling."

She pouts. "You are better than me in _everything_."

"You are better in the looks department," I say unthinkingly, before realizing this is the first time since _that night _that I have mentioned my appearance.

There is a short uncomfortable silence that she breaks. "What happened?"

I stiffen- this is not something I wish to discuss with her. Christine makes me feel beautiful, and I do not need her reminding me that it is not so. "Who knows what happened? God thought it would be funny."

"Is that why you hide away so? Is that why you are bitter?"

"Why else?" I snap.

She looks surprised. "I have no deformity," she says. "But I feel scorned from the world as well. I want to hide away. I feel bitter all the time. Doesn't it have much more to do with what is inside than outside? If I am treated the same way you are, then surely it cannot be just because of your face?"

I stare at her, befuddled by something I have never considered before.

"I ought to be loathed for many reasons," I say. "I am just not a normal man."

"I am not a normal girl."

"But you are human."

"And you are not?"

I smile. "Sometimes, I do not know. I do despicable things that seperate me from the human race."

Out of nowhere, she leans her head against me. "You're a man to me," she says. "You saved my life, in so many different ways, and I love you."

.

I do not know what her master plan is, only that it must involve her telling me every day how much she loves me.

"Here is your breakfast, dear."

"Thank you, Erik, I love you so much."

"Do you like the new song?"

"Oh, very much so! I love you, I love you!"

"Good night, Christine."

"Good night, Erik. I love you."

It is beginning to befuddle my head. Perhaps the girl really is insane. Perhaps that is why she tried to take her own life. Perhaps there is something going on in this world I do not know about.

"Good morning, Erik. Are you walking me back up today?"

"Yes, of course."

At the threshold of the upstairs, she turns around and hugs me tightly around the chest, her arms around me, her little form warming me.

I do not want to talk about it, because I do not know understand how it makes me feel.

.

She crawls into my bed one night.

Yes, that's right: she flies into my room and plows herself up on my bed with her hands and knees.

"Christine, what the devil are you doing?"

She shivers dramatically. "Erik, you forgot to put the sheets on my bed! I tried to sleep without them, but it is _freezing_ tonight!"

"Well, I-" I start to say, but then I notice what she is wearing- that black, sheer nightgown she wore _that night._

_"_Where did you get that?" I demand at once, not able to take my eyes off it.

"I bought it at a thrift shop a while ago," she says in surprise. "Do you like it?"

"Oh, no," I say, throwing my own covers off me to get up. "I am not playing this again!"

"Oh!" She looks terrified. "I swear, it's just so cold! I am not trying to- to trick you or anything!"

"Women who look like that are doing nothing but trying to trick men," I grumble, restlessly staying on the bed, but unrelaxed.

For some reason, there is an odd expression on her face. I am getting tired of not being able to simply read her countenance anymore. When did she get so damn complicated? "Have you been tricked by many women?"

I stare at her, and then laugh. "Remember when we had our lovely conversation about being 'shunned from society'? That included women as well. As if any woman would choose a deformed man when there are thousands upon thousands of handsome men in the country!"

She frowns, very seriously. "Don't be so petty. You cannot choose love based on purely looks." When I say nothing, she says, "But you sounded bitter. There was a woman- maybe many- that you loved, but they broke your heart, right? Is that why you won't admit you love me?"

My mind has to work in tiny steps to correct her in all aspects of that sentence. "I am not _bitter _because of something as silly as women. I have much bigger things to be bitter about. There has been no women that I recall ever even knowing in the slightest communicable way, other than my mother and my nurse, and I assure you, I never loved either of them in any form. And Christine, I am not hiding anything! It is not that I won't admit to it! I can't love you!" I never imagined how much those words suddenly hurt me. Traitorous tears burn at my eyes. "Christine... I wish I could..."

I am afraid of her reaction, but she is only smiling patiently. "You can," she says simply. "You do."

"I-" I try to collect myself. "If only I could, Christine! I wish I could love you! I care about you, I worship you, I am upset when you are upset, I want you with me, I enjoy your company- but those things are not love!"

"Don't you hear yourself?" she whispers, almost excited now. I am so nonplussed, I do not even react when she reaches out and touches my mask with her fingers.

"I hear myself just fine," I say blankly.

"You care about me, you worship me, you are upset when I am upset..." Her eyes are sparkling with radiant tears. "That is love."

.

What _is_ love?

.

"Christine," I say, my mouth very dry. "You must believe me..."

"Why do you insist you cannot love?" she demands, sitting up on her knees and putting her hands on her hips. "It is human nature!"

I want to pull my hair out in frustration. "I just know, Christine! I just know!"

"I don't believe you. You don't know. You can love. You do love me. I love you, and I know this because I care about you and I worry about you and I want to be with you. That tells me I love you. Because if I felt nothing for you, then why would I care about any of those things?"

"Obsession," I say stubbornly.

"Love _is_ an obsession." She leans forward and kisses me on my masked cheek. My heart speeds up at her closeness and my body feels tight and tingly.

"I- how can-?"

"I love you," she murmurs into my lips. "And I want to show you. So you can believe me."

Panic overrides in me like never before. All forms of communication shut down in my mind to feel her this close to me. Her body heat is touching mine and I can _feel_ her in so many different ways just through the air. A feeling rises up my chest and into my throat, and it comes out a strange sort of moan.

Her fingers peel off the corner of my mask.

"No!" I say, determined not to ruin this moment, whatever it is.

"Your face means nothing to me, and everything," she says softly. "To others, it may be revolting, but all I see is the face of the man who saved me when I had no where else to turn."

"Then you do this only in guilty repayment," I rasp.

Slight hurt and anger flashes in her eyes. "No, I am doing this because I love you. And-" She looks down a little. "Because I want you."

"This isn't how I wanted it to be," I gurgle. Hope sparks in her eyes.

"So you have imagined this, too?" she asks innocently, and I nearly groan. How do I explain to her that men think of this so constantly that it is almost not worth mentioning? Her figure is perfect, the perfect feminine form. She is short and her face always sparkles. Her curls bounce and when she smiles, one side of her lips is higher than the other. I have pictured our bodies together, of course I have! I can imagine sliding into her, I can imagine myself feeling that indescribable sensation that I have admittedly never actually felt before, moaning and writhing against her. I let out a weak whimper as she climbs on top of me. I am throbbing, I am on fire, I feel terrible and wonderful in the most terrible and wonderful ways!

She kisses me, and it shocks me so much that the feeling of her lips travels right down to my core.

I feel furious at myself for losing control like this, for allowing Christine to put me in this position. When I pictured it, I was always on top, I was the one making _her_ moan, I was the one making _her _fill with that desperately unrelieved sensation.

"I know you love me," she whispers, drawing her body out on mine. I have never felt a woman's body before. Her softness pads me in all the right places and I unintentionally rise up against her and I cannot stop the rush of feeling when I do it again, and again. I tremble. My whole body tightens.

"Stop," I gasp, and I am on the edge and when she moves herself over me again, I come right there, fully clothed beneath her, shaking and writhing with complete abandon as I climax because of this obsession. She holds me down while I vibrate with burst need and longing, and she is nudging my face gently with her nose, so tender.

Seconds, maybe minutes pass before I am so humiliated that I can hardly even move. Tears have formed in my eyes and they well up again for no reason at all. My heart picks up again, only this time with horror. The most intimate of experiences, I just had in front of Christine. All she had done was speak to me, touch me, lay on top of me for not even five minutes, and I could not even last long enough for her to take her damned clothes off! What the hell was wrong with me?

"I love you," she says, her face still on my collarbone down, her voice muffled a little by my shirt. "Oh, I love you."

.

I let her stay and sleep beside me- what else was I supposed to do? I lay perfectly still until she is asleep, and then I get up and change very quietly. My entire body thrums with anger and embarrassment and... and... thankfulness? Relief? Just thinking about it again makes moisture gather in my eyes, which I ignore steadily.

Christine looks as though she will not wake, so I leave her and go and compose for a little while. I finally break down and cry. I cry because I am a horrible, ugly man who is nearly fifty years old and has never had that moment with a woman, ever- and I cry because I know Christine wanted to make love with me and I couldn't even do it. I couldn't even physically love her. I am useless. I deserve to die.

.

She rises for breakfast like nothing has happened, and I can hardly looks at her. I don't want to sing, I don't want to do anything but lock myself in my room and mope.

"Do you want some tea?"

"No," I say coldly.

Her face looks wounded, but she doesn't say anything.

We sit in silence until I can hardly stand it, and then she says, "I thought you would understand more after... last night. I thought I could help you see."

I am fuming again, because I can never admit to her what she did for me last night.

"My behavior was inexcusable," I say stiffly. _And completely out of my control. _"But so was yours."

She stabs her food. "Lovers make love. Everyone does it. I've asked around."

"FOR CHRIST SAKES!" I scream, lifting up the table with my arms and throwing it away from her. I have never felt such anger boil through every inch of my body. "I DO NOT LOVE YOU! WHAT PART OF THAT DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND! AM I SPEAKING TO A DEAF CHILD? I CANNOT LOVE YOU! I DO NOT LOVE! GET THAT THROUGH YOUR HEAD!"

She is crying, fumbling with her napkin to hide her face, and she leaps up and races to the door.

"Then I will never return here again!" she sobs, and she throws open the door and disappears.

.

Empty.

I am obsessed with Christine Daae.

And when that is gone... what is there to do?

.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Your reviews are lovely. Thank you. I hope I managed to reply to all those who had questions, and if not, send me another!**

.

When she says gone... I realize she really means gone.

Christine is leavng the Opera.

It is not very difficult. People leave the opera all the time. Some leave to seek better musical opportunities, some leave to find a real career. Many leave because of unplanned pregnancies or impending marriage proposals. Some leave because the are tired of all the work. Christine leaves for no reason at all. She is just packing. I know her to well to know that she has no idea where she is going.

I cry bitterly.

.

I watch in horror when she is finished with everything. I tell myself not to move from behind her mirror. I brought this upon myself. She only wanted me to love her, and I could not. I failed her, again and again and again, and now I have no claim on her. She does not deserve to be my obsession, she deserves to be the obsession and love of a better man.

Yet somehow I can't just stand here and watch her leave? What am I to do?

She swings her bag up. Those glittery tear tracks that I adore and loathe so much are down her face again. In about five seconds, she will be gone forever. And I cannot stand that! How can I live without her now? She is as natural as breathing to me. I love when she is around me, I love when I am with her, I love when she talks with me, I love when she sings to me, I love her hair and her eyes, I love the way she needs me...

Wait a moment...

_Love?_

It does not have to be true. She just has to hear it.

And I realize, there is a way to stop her after all.

.

"Christine!"

It must be very odd to see someone emerge from your mirror in the wall. The look on her face was certainly shocked.

"Where are you going?"

The look on her face disappears very quickly and is replaced with one of hurt and haughtiness. "Away," she says stoutly, trying not to look at me.

"Why?"

"I have to get away from here. There is nothing left for me."

"Your singing. Your career is just getting started!"

"I cannot do it anymore. I haven't the strength. I have no desire to sing."

She opens the door.

"You can't leave!" I burst out, like an impatient child.

"Why not?" she says, hands on her hips.

"Because I love you!" I say. Instantly, I am unsure of whether or not I should have said that.

She laughs. "Oh, I know you don't want me to leave. But please do not lie to me. I am like a little doll to you. I haven't the faintest idea what you'll do without me... but I cannot go on like this."

"I love you," I repeat. My voice sounds hazy.

She gives me a sad look and turns to leave.

I panic. Really and truly, I lose it. You have no idea what would happen to me if I let her just walk out of my life. There is no life without her. What is the point in doing anything, if I cannot share it with her? Everything I have done has been _for_ her. I did these things because I wanted her to be happy, because I cared about her.

"Lock this door behind you," she says.

"I cared about you!" I shout. "I cared about you, and I was obsessed with you and I needed you and I didn't know why, how would I know why? I have never even had a friend before, who am I to recognize emotions? I didn't understand why you were everything to me - I still don't, but I want to understand because I can't be this confused anymore - you were everything to me because I love you, I think I love you, I don't know- How am I supposed to know? I can't lose you, I need you... I love you..."

She steps back. "You-"

I do not let her finish. Never have I done anything like this before, but having her so near with the prospect of her leaving makes me lunge forward and kiss her.

Having never kissed anyone before, I realize instantly that it is very awkward to kiss someone with this mask on. I do not know how to meet her lips. Straight on? A little to the corner? Do I focus on her top lip or bottom lip? Am I doing it right at all?

I think she gets the idea, however.

She pulls back a little. She looks like she is about to burst out into tears.

"Please don't leave me," I beg softly.

"You said you were not a man, and you could not love," she replies, looking up at me with her eyes.

"I feel like a man with you," I say in a small voice. "Is this what it is like to love somebody?"

She hesitates. "I think so. I feel like a woman with you. You make me feel.. different."

"Different..." I repeat. If Christine has had any effect on me, it has been to make me different.

She creeps back to me, timidly. "How do I know you really love me?"

I want to go back how it used to be, where she was simply my music student and we were happy. She was beautiful, and she made me feel beautiful, and I was comfortable with myself for once in my life. Now I have been thrown in a world where I have never ventured before, and it is as terrifying as exhilarating.

"You cannot," I breathe. "I don't even know."

Her face breaks out into joy, into relief, and I can feel it, the love she has for me.

The love I have for her.

Maybe.

"We can discover together," she says.

.

Days pass.

Is this love?

I do not feel any different now. I feel the same as I always did around Christine - whole, and much more pleasant. She has always been accepting of me, only now it is not only on a musical degree. I like being around her in a new way now. It is as if I have nothing to hide from her, nothing it at all. She sings for me, and I watch her with posessive eyes, like always. Perhaps obsession is a little like love, in a way. Perhaps love is just a withstanding mutual obsession.

.

She demands her piano lesson, as usual, and when I demonstrate a little something for her, she puts her hands on top of mine.

I stop playing and feel the smoothness of her skin. When I look up, she is smiling at me.

.

She insists on sleeping in my bed with me, so I let her. She curls up with a pillow and leans on her elbow, watching me.

"How do you expect me to sleep with you staring so intently?" I complain, but really, I do not mind.

"What made you so convinced that you could not love?" she asks quietly.

I am still not entirely convinced... but I am not about to tell her that anymore. "Because I have never been loved by anyone. Ever."

"You cannot know that," she protests.

"I can. "

She falls silent, and I wonder if she is considering that, or just tired of contradicting me.

"What made you so convinced that there was nothing worth living for?" I question.

I look at her closely before she can answer, and I am so close to her that the edges of her curls are beginning to fall into my face. I can see the shadows of her eyelashes against her cheeks as she furrows her brow and thinks for a moment.

"You have no idea how sad I was before you, Erik. You have no idea how alone I felt. And then you came along and just made everything all better. But I adored you too much, and grew too attached, so that as soon as I was back up there, I was depressed again. And then you kept sending me back up there, and I was so confused and so hurt, and then you yelled at me..." She shakes her head. "I cannot describe how I was feeling. Only... You were outside of my door for a reason. You stopped me. You saved me, again. Like an angel."

I remember I used to think of her as my angel... And angel of music sent to me...

"You are an angel," she whispers, and kisses my face.

.

After that, she sleeps in my room every night.

And I love just having her next to me, I really do. I am not greedy. I appreciate what I never have had before, and that is simply the comfort of someone next to me.

But nightgowns are so thin, you see. She curls up next to me, and it makes shapes in the fabric and it is so real and so unfamiliar that I cannot stop looking at it. Sometimes I catch glimpses of her legs, and I think about how she climbed on top of me and made me feel.

And _that_ is when I grow greedy. Because I want that feeling again.

Once it is in my head, I cannot get it out.

She climbs in next to me, and when she leans over to give me my customary good night kiss, I grab her wrist.

She looks at me in concern. "Is something the matter?" she asks.

"What _kind_ of love do you love me?" I question.

She looks puzzled. "Love is love. What other kind of love are there?"

I shake my head. "There are many kinds of love. There is a mother's love for her children, a neighbor's love for their neighbors, a child's love for their friend. How do you love me?"

"Like how a woman loves a man," she says succiently, without any second thought. "The love lover's have for each other. Like a husband and a wife."

"You have never been married before," I say protestingly, watching the clarity of her face. "How are you to know the love between a husband and wife?"

She ducks her head down a little to lay against me. For the moment, my ardor cools. There is something just as satisfying as these little moments with her. "I just do," she says simply. "I am not stupid, you know."

I laugh deep in my throat. "No, you most certainly are not."

"Do you really love me?" she asks after a second of silence. "Or were you just saying that to make me stay?"

I hesitate; my skin prickles with unease. "I do not know," I say honestly.

She waits for a moment, and I wait anxiously as well, to see if I have hurt her with my words. But she seems to mull them over and move closer to me. "Thank you," she says. "For being honest. But I wouldn't worry too much - I _know_ you do."

.

I wonder what is going on upstairs. She has been gone for quite some time. I wonder if they are panicking that she has not showed up at rehearsals, or if they are worrying about her at all. Maybe they assume she has just run away. Maybe they are expecting her back. Maybe they are not.

Either way, we couldn't care less.

.

I touch her, and she opens her eyes and stares at me unabashedly. Slowly, she slides off her pillow to come closer to me and I push my fingers hesitatingly against her body. She kisses me on my lips before sliding the mask away and kissing all over my face. I do not mind- it is dark. She cannot see anything.

She seems to understand that I do not want to speak right now, or have an analysis of our thoughts and emotions. I am gentle with her, even though I have a growing emotion that makes me feel like I want to attack her. Not hurt her, but something different. It is like I want to attack her with fondness, by pressing her against me, by holding her more tightly. It is complicated to feel. I do not know how to handle her. She slides closer to me, but hesitates when she feels my arousal. It makes me nervous, too. Am I ready for this?

She stays quiet, kissing me gently and letting me touch her. At some point, I cannot help myself, and I open the front ties of her dress. I want to see her, and I am nearly salivating to see her, but I can tell she is growing more and more afraid. A part of me- a very tiny part- is irritated with her: she started this, and she draws back on me now?

"I have never even kissed a man before," she whispers. "Besides you."

I do not know what to say to that. I have never kissed a woman before. She must know that. She must know there is nothing to be afraid of here. No one is around to judge her or compare her. It is just me, and what have I done, other than show that girl kindness?

Voicing her concerns seems to make her stronger. She helps me pull off her dress and she is pleased by my soft gasp of longing. I have never seen a real woman unclothed before. So this is why God gave Adam his Eve.

Suddenly, I do not want her to undress me. Her embarassment is over now, but mine is just beginning. My skin is flaky and unatrractive; I have burns and old wounds; My skin is stretched and worn. She senses my withdrawl. "Are you shy?" she asks, stopping her hand.

"I am not beautiful like you," I say, hurt.

"That is good," she says, unfazed. "No one thought I was beautiful until you."

"Such a lie!" I protest.

"My face is very plain and my hair is not smooth and silky like most of the girls," she says simply. "My face is very round and my eyebrows are ugly."

I stare at her, aghast. I have never seen anything as beautiful as her. Her hair is luxorious and soft and her face is gentle and becoming. Her eyes sparkle. Her skin is the color of peaches. I have never seen anyone so eye-catching as her. She is like an angel. How could anyone like her look in the mirror and not like what they see? What nonsense is she speaking of?

"You see yourself in a different light than I do," I say, unable to forumlate an articulate response to something so ludicrus.

"Then perhaps I should say the same to you," she says, and she carefully peels off my shirt. I am so overwhelmed with her innocent nudity that I can almost pretend this is not really happening.

She touches me through my trousers and I am quivering now, and I cannot explain the feeling.

"Thank you for saving me," she says sweetly. "Now I want to save you."

And slowly she undresses me, and she saves me. She saves me. She saves me. Again and again and again.

.

I still do not know what love is. But I think I am beginning to learn.

.

She doesn't want to sing nearly as much anymore. It would bother me, but I am perfectly agreeable to other activites she would prefer to do.

A lot of concepts I did not understand before make sense to me now. Like marriage, and honeymoons. Like the high number of children couples have. Like how men are always so indebted to their seemingly simple wives.

"Am I going to marry you?" I ask her.

She rolls over and stares at me with her bright eyes. "Are you?"

I fidget. "Well, we are just down here. We can just be married down here. We do not have to leave the Opera."

She thinks for a moment. "Right," she says. "Let's be married." She closes her eyes for a second and then smiles, leans over, and kisses me lightly. "Husband," she says.

I do not really want her as my wife. I want her as my lover, my doll, my obsession.

But anything goes.

.

"Christine," I say carefully one night. "I want to draw you." I want to preserve her forever, just the way she is. I want to build my shrine around her.

She is only wearing her nightgown. She flutters her eyelashes. "Tomorrow," she says balefully. "When I am all dressed up and pretty."

"No one shall see them but me."

"Then just look at me now."

"I want a picture," I say stubbornly. I peel her nightgown away from her shoulder. Her pale skin calls to me. I feel myself harden. It is the stangest and most extraordinary feeling.

"I _am_ your picture," she giggles, sliding up to me. I have the oddest opinion that Christine really loves tempting and flirting in bed. She likes to be in control and make me pant for her. I think it makes her feel loved. It makes her feel wanted. Well, she is loved and wanted, and I am too eager to show her.

.

She prances out in a pale pink dress with embroidered roses. In her left hand is a lacy fan I have never seen before. Christine likes playing dress-up; it is one of the many reasons she wanted to be an actress.

"You do not need that silly thing," I say, gesturing the fan away.

She pouts. "But it is so classy!"

"I do not want class. I want _you._ You are lucky I am letting you wear clothes at all. Now can you be still for a little while?"

"Oh yes," she says obediently, and she drapes herself over the little couch.

I want to devour her, the way she looks. I am so lucky to have found such a treasure.

.

We sing for a few hours, and then she demands a little bit of piano. She is growing quite good.

But her singing is still beyond compare. It is what drew me into her the first place, and what will keep my attention rooted to her at all times. Sometimes I grow restless when she goes without singing for too long.

"Do you only love me because of my voice?" she asks hesitatingly.

I am still not sure why I love her in the first place... only that I care about her and treausre her and enjoy her, and I think that might be love. Who is to know for sure? How am I to reassure her of anything if I do not know myself? If I say no, I do not only love her for her voice, then what do I love her for?

"I just love you," I say simply. She does not like that vague answer. I think women like to be told the same thing over and over again. I do not know what it does for them, only that is pleases them.

"Why do you love me?" she pines, abandoning singing and coming to stand behind me and affectionately touching my shoulder.

"I do not know," I huff irritably. "Why can you not sing for me?"

"I will always sing for you," she says at once.

"Then do so, without all this silly chatter."

Her eyes grow distant, but she is obedient, as always.

.

We either sing or make love. Christine and I have nothing else in common. Music makes us perfect. When we are both singing, we are both equal and happy. We fit together and I can feel normal. But with the latter, it only serves to remind me how un-normal I am. I see the color of my skin compared to hers, the frailness of my body next to hers... Sometimes I would rather be singing.

But Christine has never been happier. She smiles all the time now and she laughs at everything. She never tires of things to do here.

Another thing she does not tire of is her ability to crush me with a few single words before bedtime. It is always before bedtime- "Do you love me?"

I grunt at her. Sometimes, there is only so much I can take.

For the first time, she sighs and says, "I know you do. But... do you really? I feel like you do not believe it yourself. So how am I to?"

I study her face trying my hardest to have absolute conviction in my eyes. "Christine, I really do love you," I say finally. "I am sure of that. I just do not understand why, or how. It confuses me. But as long as I remember that I do love you, I continue to try and figure it out."

"You are loving me just fine," she says sternly, poking her finger into my chest. "In the way you care for me, and the way you treat me."

I stare at her pathetically. "Yes but... that is just all very _normal._ It isn't like love at all!"

She thinks for a moment and says, "You know, Erik, I think you have seen too many operas and read too many books. You have come to believe that there is only the fairytale with love."

"But love _is_ the fairytale," I argue pathetically. "I am supposed to be delivering suave lines and giving you sparkling things and being soft and sensual all the time-"

She laughs. "I am right, see? You know of only the outer aspect of love, the part displayed for the public. But when every couple is alone, they act differently."

"When did you get so mature about such things?" I ask suspiciously.

"Oh, I am very immature! Especially in men. I do not know the slightest about men." She blushes a little. "But I have had more human contact than you. You may know everything best.. but I think I understand the mechnics of emotion better."

"You do not understand anything," I pout, and she pulls her blanket to come closer to me and swindles herself right next to me.

"I understand _some_ things," she giggles, moving in a steady motion against me.

"Few," I allow, gathering her closer to me. I close my eyes for the briefest of seconds, allowing her to simply take control and make me lose myself, and she quickly kisses me all over my face in one sweep. I let my tongue taste her shoulder instead. She drops her head to the side and moans. I think it is good for both of us to be in control every now in then, but I wouldn't know-I have never made love to anyone before Christine.

.

Everything is going so well, that she begins to show slight interest in going upstairs to perform again. It makes me very happy to see this resurgance of old habits and regular lifestyle, just as it makes me slightly jealous that I may have to share her again. But as much as I want her voice to only belong to me, I also want to make sure others hear it and want to die in envy. I want to see other's reactions and think, that belongs to me!

So although it is an unselfish thing I am doing for very selfish reasons, I am fine with it and we begin to formulate a plot for her to secure her successful position back upstairs.

.

Our story flies smoothly. They are displeased with her initially, but who can be displeased with Christine for more than a few minutes? They offer her condolences about her imaginary aunt's death and quickly assure her she will be in the next production, in promptly two weeks. Two more weeks I will have with her, all to myself. Two weeks for us to sing together and learn the role of Euridice.

"I have danced in this opera before," she says, flipping absent-mindedly through the libretto. I, of course, know this. I know everything about her.

"So you know the music."

"Perhaps." She holds it away from her, and then sighs. "But you will help me learn it, no?"

I smile at her.

.

And halfway through the first reshearsal, there is some surprising news: the managers of the Opera House are retiring, and two new managers have come to take his place. This does not matter in the slightest, as managers have very little to do with the running of the show, but I am somewhat irritated that such a change was made without my noticing. Christine has distracted me so much. But I love it.

.

It is difficult for Christine to focus on one thing alone. She wants to learn everything at the same time. We must put away our own compositions and personal favorites for this music, and we must focus on one direct melody at a time. One minute, she wants to sing one song, and then she grows bored and want to sing another. I find her restlessness endearing as well as annoying. I want her to focus on one song so she can perform flawlessly - then, and only then, will we move on to the next.

Perfection is a far goal, but it has never been one I have been afraid to chase. If I decide Christine will perform something perfectly, then she will.

Sometimes, she is not so convinced. She grows frustrated very eaisly. While she never lacks in her attempts to please, I know that pleasing me and living up to herself are two very different emotions for her.

But I make sure she is always happy. As often as I deliver my criticism - and oh, I dish it out quite a bit! - I make sure to counter each comment with one of praise on a different perspective. I will always keep her happy.

There is still a certain sort of sadness in me. Yes, I am beginning to believe that I love her... I just wish I knew how to prove it.

But she is a content girl. She takes what I offer, and never looks back.

.

I think the two weeks pass slowly for her, but they pass quickly for me. As much as I want her practicing, I also want her with me. I like having her next to me when I am doing things, I like seeing how pretty she is, and I like touching her.

My own body irritates me. Sometimes, I only want to be with her, to touch her for a moment while she snuggles next to me, and then suddenly, I want her. I just want to be with her, and then I am so desperate for more closeness, for more intamacy, for more skin, that just sitting next to her is out of the question.

She never seems to mind. She thinks it is funny. She adores it. It makes her feel undeniably wanted, and she loves it.

.

I am glad I drew my picture of her, to have with me when she is at the long rehearsals.

"Won't you be watching me?" she asks hesitatingly.

"Oh yes-when I can. I would love nothing more than to sit back and listen to you sing for everyone."

That is a lie. I would love nothing more than to sit back and listen to her sing for _me_. And just as I am thinking that, she giggles and says, "I think you would prefer to have me sing just for _you_, all to yourself."

I gape at her, and inside my head I am thinking, _obsession. She is mine._

_._

I had anticpated her return to the theatre to be many good things. She would thrive a little bit more, but she knew she was tied to me, which makes her just as comfortable as anything else could. I could watch with pride, she could sing for me, and everything was going to be simply splendid. I began to believe that just maybe, life could work out for us. Perhaps I can finally truly convince myself that I love her.

And then in comes Raoul de Chagny.

.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Don't hate me for this chapter. It had to happen, you know.**

**.**

I do not like how _avidly_ he sought Christine after rehearsals. Everyone in the company knows better than to socialize with Christine. They have all come to realize that she is a personal creature and keeps to herself, and they leave her pretty well much alone.

But _this_ one would not leave her alone.

I notice him first when he is pacing outside of her dressing room, but once he has departed, I assume he has given up and will not come back. However, her returns the next day, this time in the front row. My attention is diverted—the director does not like people in the audience. Why is he being allowed?

My curiosity leads me to eavesdropping and exploring, and I discover that he is Raoul de Chagny, son of very famous patron to the opera. I hear that he is trying to fill his father's position and take over financial affairs himself. Although all of the women seem to giggle that he is cute, they also seem to think he is very clumsy and awkward. No one seems to pay much attention to him after his initial arrival.

But of course, it is really when he approaches Christine that I know we have a problem.

"Christine Daae?" he says in genuine wonder as he sidles up to her side while she is at the make-up station, preparing to wash. She turns and looks at him blankly, and they stare at each other for one long, comical second, until she says, "_Raoul_?"

I sharply dart closer to them both. I hate the recognition in her voice. I hate the look on her face.

"Raoul?" she says again, in half-laughter, raising her hand to her mouth. "Is it really you?"

And he laughs, too. "Christine Daae! Look at you!" And then without warning, she throws herself into his arms and he hugs her tightly.

My skin explodes in daggers, my blood racing with adrenaline and shock at her betrayal. I cannot believe what I am seeing-and neither can anyone else standing around them, by the look of it. They all glance at each other and nosily watch this unusual interaction between the reclusive star and the awkward new patron.

I just cannot describe the jealousy I feel. I have felt jealousy at Christine's other social interactions, like when people smile at her or touch her, or when I see her doing things with them and just generally being happy with someone other than me, but this is different. It makes me angry the way I see his arm curl around her, the way his coat comes up when he lifts his arms, the way she leans in a little bit, the way her hair drapes over her shoulders, the way his face is close to her when he smiles at her, and she smiles back.

Christine was unhappy. I made her happy. I don't want anyone else making her happy!

"I cannot believe-" she stutters, drawing arm's length back to look at him. "You look just the same as ever!"

"I could hardly say the same to you!" he exclaims back. "Your hair is so much longer and you look so different! You look absolutely stunning!"

I cringe at that. By telling her she is so different, and stunning, is implying that she wasn't stunning before. Now I want to kill him.

But she looks flattered and embarrassed, but she laughs and says, "Tell me why you are here!"

"Why, my father's donated money towards the Opera House, and now that I am on my own, I would like to follow in his footsteps and become another patron of the Opera!" His chest puffs out proudly as he says this.

She looked thrilled. "How wonderful!" At that moment, the cleaners call for her to move. She and him are the only two left onstage now. She seems to notice this, and she drifts away ever so subtly. "I'm terribly sorry, Raoul, but I must be going. But I hope to see you at future rehearsals?"

"Oh yes," he says, nodding vigorously. "Every one of them!"

His enthusiasm is tiring. I am fuming with a more controlled rage now, and I am waiting patiently for Christine to come home.

"Well, I look forward to it," she says, smiling gently, and then disappears backstage.

Raoul remains there for a few seconds, staring at her in a sort of wistful disbelief. I watch him, until I can take no more, and I sharply swoop away.

.

I pounce on her as soon as she is in the doorway. "Who was that?" I demand. "And why was he bothering you? Why were you so pleasant to him? What does he know of you?"

"Calmly, Erik, calmly!" she says as if she has not a care in the world, looking at me with patient eyes. "It is Raoul! The only friend I have ever had in my childhood. We met when my father gave him violin lessons, but he was so dreadful they stopped nearly at once. But we became friends straight away, but I haven't seen him in many years!"

"And what does he want from you now?" I say angrily. "What reason did he have to accost you like that?"

She raises her eyebrows at me. "Accost me? He was only saying hello to an old friend. He looked quite as surprised to see me as I was to see him."

"Lies," I hiss vehemently. "He has been watching you for days now."

"Has he?" she asks, and seems momentarily off-guard. "I wonder why he didn't approach me earlier, then..."

I fume some more, but I cannot say anything else. She drifts away, and I can hardly think.

.

He ruins everything, instantly. It is all I can think about during rehearsals, looking down at his little blonde head and wondering what he is thinking. I have never seen anyone besides show interest in Christine before, and I do not like it. He has no right to be interested in her, in any capacity. She is _mine_, as in belonging to me. She is my object of obsession, and I do not share he. _He_ cannot be obsessed with her, because I simply could not allow that.

.

He _is_ obsessed with her.

It is like he must always be coming up to her and chatting with her, whether she wants to or not. And he is always coming to her dressing room during breaks and pestering her with his relentless energy.

But the worst part is Christine doesn't seem bothered by this at all! And I hate it. I want her to be disgusted by him as much as I am.

"He was a very, very dear friend to me when I was little," she says patiently.

"_I_ am your friend now," I say sourly.

"You are my lover," she points out. "As well as my friend. I can have other friends, Erik. I have never had friends before! Please let me have a friend."

I do not want her to have any other friend but myself, but I cannot say this, because then she will grow upset. And I do not want her upset.

.

There is a two-day break from rehearsals, and I am anxiously awaiting her back home for a full forty-eight hours, when young Raoul decides that since she will be free, this is a good time to ask her out to lunch.

_And she considers it!_

And then she comes home and has the gall to ask me, "Do you mind if I go out for a little while tomorrow with Raoul?"

Do I _mind?_

I cannot even believe she would be stupid enough to ask such a question. "Of course I mind," I snap. "Why do you want to leave me, and spend time with another man?"

She laughs lightly, like I am joking. "Oh, Raoul is not another man- well, he is, but not like that- I mean, he's just a friend."

I gape at her some more.

"No!" I say frantically. "You cannot go out with someone else, you cannot socialize with another man, I will not permit it! No, no, no!"

And I finally expect her to frown at me, but she still speaking soothingly, like handling a child. "Erik, you do not have to be jealous. I understand that you do not want to let me go, but it will be fine. I just want to catch up with a dear friend of mine. He was with my when my father was very sick, he understands that part of me."

"I _understand_ you," I growl.

"There is no competition," she assures me. "I love you."

"And he loves you."

"Of course. Friends can love each other."

I freeze. "Do you love him?"

"Well yes, of course, but not-"

"I _hate_ you!" I scream savagely, sweeping away from her and into my room, locking the door.

.

I know I should not upset her, but I am too upset to care.

.

She paws on the outside of the door. "Erik, please..." she begs. "I will not go. For you. I will stay here with you all day, because I love you, and you are more important that Raoul. Please come out. I do not want to waste a single second with you."

I do not answer. I am furious. I feel betrayed.

She sits out there all night, I can hear her. In the morning, when she has fallen asleep on the floor, and go out and lift her up into the bed, resting beside her. I put my arms around her to keep her held down. Now she will not leave me at all.

.

My lovely little obsession. She has taken completely over my life, as she always has. I must keep her safe and I must keep her here.

.

She wakes me up by touching her tongue to my ear. I move my lips over hers, travelling down to her chest and casually undoing her lacy gown. She twists her fingers into my shirt.

"I am all yours," she whispers, and I want to say, _I know, you do not have to tell me_, but I keep quiet.

She pushes her little fingers into my skin as I finish disrobing her and continue by placing my lips back on her. I do not like to look at her at these times, because then I am reminded that she is beautiful and I am not. So instead, I let my eyes roam over her body as I taste her again and again.

We are very good learners. Making love is just another art, and Christine and I are artists.

She arches a little and extends her arms so I can climb more easily on top of her. With a slight shake of my head, I indicate that I do not need any more tantalizing right now, and I enter her slowly. I am dying in want of her, but for some reason I am paced and relaxed. I can tell her eyes are looking at me, but I hide my face in her hair against her shoulder so I do not have to see her and think about how ugly I am. I do not want that now-I do not want that ever.

I love her, and I prove my love for her when I lose everything inside of her and I cry out hoarsely in defeat. But I cannot tell her I love her, not now, maybe not ever. So I hold onto her tightly and hope I can make up for it with other things.

.

She is almost late for rehearsal, and it is my fault. I am a gallant gentleman-somewhat- and I help her dress even as she is running out the door.

"I look terrible!" she whines as she hurries up, with me following closely behind. "My dress is wrinkly and I have nothing on my face!"

I cannot see how on earth it will matter, when she will be putting on different clothes onstage and applying her overdone stage make-up, but then suddenly I stutter to a stop.

"Why does it matter what you look like?" I attack, grabbing her arm. She is still in full speed and the harsh stop makes her snap back against me, and she looks up at me with wide eyes. "You will be looking different onstage anyway, right? And it does not matter, because I know you are beautiful, and I am the only one who matters, right?"

"Oh Erik, all women want to look beautiful," she says blankly.

"I want to look beautiful! But more importantly, I want you to look beautiful!"

She looks downcast. "I am sorry I did not put up my hair this morning-"

I shake her impatiently. "No, no... You know I think you look beautiful how you are. So who is it you are trying to dress up for?"

She stares at me with the same blank expression. "I don't... understand? Just when I am in public, I don't want to look all tousled like this!"

I squint at her. "And Raoul de Chagny? Does _he_ care what you look like?"

She blinks. "But... Does it matter?"

It appears I am not going to get a straight answer out of my girl. I release her and she ambles away, looking confusedly back at me. "Aren't you coming?" she asks.

I am unbelievably torn. I want to go to rehearsal to hear her sing and to see her perform, yes, but I also want to go to rehearsal to watch Raoul closely and make sure he makes no more advances towards what is mine. Yet at the same time, I do not want to go to rehearsals because I will have to see him, and then I will want to kill him.

"I... I am not sure that would be a wise idea, my sweetest," I say, backing away from her as if in a daze. "No, I am just going to go back home. I am tired, and I have some work I wanted to do. I will write a lovely new song for you when you come home."

She bites her lip, looking worried, and I want to eat her with adoration from the way she looks. Sometimes I intentionally confuse her, just so I can see that precious face, when her brows come together and she frowns ever so slightly. It is impossible to look away from, and it is addicting. To make it even worse (or better, depending how I looked at it) she tilts her head to one side and sighs.

"Well, alright then," she agrees. "I will miss you. I will not do half as well today if I am not inspired by you watching me."

_Oh, goody-so Raoul will not hear your best today, will he? No, because only I have heard your best..._ I give her a smile. "I will be waiting."

She blows me a kiss and departs.

.

I sit at home, musing about the first time I was sexually in awe of Christine, in her one little performance where she danced around in the lavender silk with the other girls, and how she stuck out because of her beauty. I think about how only weeks later, I laid with her.

I always get what I want.

_Always_.

.

Christine comes home sheepish.

She tries to hide it, oh yes, but I am not stupid.

"How was rehearsal?" I ask swiftly.

"Oh-fine," she says, laying her things down. "Nothing interesting. I do not have to go in tomorrow until a little later, they are working with the chorus all morning."

"Ah," I say, moving closer. "You look bothered about something."

"Bothered? No."

"Uncomfortable?"

Well," she says, looking down at the floor and shifting her weight. "I did want to talk to you about something."

Breathlessly, I wait to hear Raoul de Chagny's name- he has asked her out to accompany him again, he has demanded to pick her up tomorrow, he has give her a token of his affection- but then she says, "Have you done something to my mirror?"

My heart stops it fluttered and I look at her in confusion. "Perhaps," I say evasively.

"The one in my dressing room."

I stare at her innocently.

"Only because it doesn't look the same anymore, I I could swear the lining around it is different. But before I came down here, it was a pattern of gold leaves or something similar, and now it is some sort of intricate design."

"Much prettier, I think," I murmur.

She wrinkles her nose. "But... why did you replace the rim around my mirror?"

I hesitate. "Because... I want to see you."

She looks at me, baffled.

"I can see through your mirror," I say, and it instantly sounds absolutely horrendous, but I cannot bring myself to regret it.

"You can see through my mirror?"

"Yes, I replaced the glass. It is like a window to me."

She puts her hands on her hips. "Show me."

.

I show her.

She is initially aghast, and I think she is going to scold me for being so scandalous, but instead she says, "Coming up this way was much quicker! If only I could step through my mirror and come this way each day, it would only be a three minute walk, instead of ten!"

I am always puzzled by the things she comes up with to say. This was not the reaction I was expecting at all. I decide to stay silent.

"Is there a way I could get through the mirror?" she asks, examining it.

"You cannot walk through glass," I scoff.

"Yes, I know... Can we make it open somehow?"

_"I_ can make it open," I say. "But it would be more difficult for you, on that side, and very heavy."

"Would it be easier on this side to open?"

"Oh yes."

"Well, then you can come up here every day after rehearsals and open it for me," she says in a designed voice.

.

When I go to retrieve her in her dressing room, I am surprised to find her already there waiting, even though I am a little worried. She never uses her dressing room. But she is in there now, wearing about half of her costume. Fixing her hair in her vanity mirror, she gently slips it off her shoulder so she is just in her underthings. I can see the outline of her body beneath it. Like a dancer, she slips over to her hook and takes her dressing gown, very gently wrapping it around her. I swing open the mirror to let her know I am there, watching.

But she doesn't seem surprised at all. She hops on over, smiling at me like a little child.

"Were you watching?" she asks sweetly.

"Yes," I admit.

She giggles.

.

Raoul comes up to her after rehearsal _again._

"Do you ever leave the Opera House?" he teases, resting his arm on the back of the shelf behind them, attempting to look suave and casual. "I swear, I have only seen you here at rehearsal. Why will you not come out with me?"

She laughs a little, and I am glad to see she is still in control, not anxious by his questioning. "I am dedicated to my art, Raoul."

"But you must go home, you must eat and sleep... But I never see you leave."

She hesitates, but jumps quickly back in with, "And I have never seen you doing your patronly doings! Are you not supposed to be intermingling with the managers and getting to know them?"

He shrugs, still grinning. "I would not know. My father and I are very different people, so I am not to be compared to him. Besides, you are my favorite singer, so it is only natural that I should be mingling with you the most!"

I hear his words in my head, _you are my favorite singer! you are my favorite singer! you are my favorite singer! _again and again and again. I clench my fists and I take a deep breath that feel like it is rattling around in my chest. I am just so furious at the fact that the first person who Christine decides to let into her life after me, is a handsome young man who is clearly interested in her!

"If it is not too bold," he begins, which of course means he is about to be too bold, "but where _do_ you live?"

She pauses for a millisecond. "Very close to the Opera."

"I am very close as well. I would so love to pick you up one day for an afternoon stroll of lunch. I would be so honored."

She smiles and says, "It is a possibility."

And one thing I have to give to Christine, is that she is never perturbed. While I am here, frazzled and fretting over his answers, she is as calm as ice in the way she handles him. Never once does she panic or improvise to the point of insanity. One could say she has mastered the art of stealth very well, and this is only her first test.

.

I do not stay as calm.

"A possibility?" I say as soon as she comes in. "What do you mean, a possibility?"

She frowns at me; she is beginning to get tired of being interrogated at the door every time she arrives home from rehearsal. "Oh, I had to say something, did I not? What was I supposed to say, no? And then he would have asked why!"

"And if you had said no, and he had asked why... What would you say?"

She looks at me.

"I do not know," she says finally. "I suppose we should be glad that did not happen."

I feel my anger rise, but I let her go.

.

My anger continues to stew and burn for the rest of the night. I do not know if Christine is intentionally avoiding me, or if she is just busy doing other things, but I turn irritable and suspicious at her distance. I head off to find her.

Unexpectedly, I find her in bed, reading a book. For some strange reason, it really was just not what I was expecting, and seeing her so vulnerable in her nightgown, with her hair down over her shoulder, in _my_ bed, only makes me more determined to prove that she is mine.

"I will not have you associating with Raoul anymore," I say, stepping into the room.

I startle her; she did not know I was there. She drops her book and looks up at me with wide eyes. "Why?" she says, her mouth turning down.

I grit my teeth at her, at how pretty she looks. She is tricking me, trying to throw me off with her appearance, but I will not be swayed. "He is getting too close to you. You cannot allow anyone to get too close."

"Why?"

"BECAUSE, DAMNIT!" I roar, and she jumps again, pulling the covers up on instinct.

I do not like that she pulls the covers up like that, and I advance towards her until I am right over her. "What is the matter?" she says fearfully. "It is alright... You can tell me."

I rip the covers away from her, intending an angry resort, but my throat dies a little when I see the curve of her legs, the indentations of her waist. Instantly, I want her badly.

I swallow and take one wavering step back. "You-you and him-are not good," I say thickly.

She sits up, further stirring the position of her legs, all curled up like that. "What do you mean? What are you talking about?"

I reach out, just to touch her leg, and her skin is warmer than I expected, and I cannot help myself, and I come closer and put both of my hands on her body. She gasps a little at the abruptness of it, but adjusts her legs so I have more access and scoots over a little for me.

It is an invitation absolutely impossible to resist. My resolve saps, and I climb in on top of her. And although she is beautiful and I think I love her, all I can see is her with Raoul is my eye, and when I look at her, I see her smiling at him, and I keep growing angry. I push my anger out on her-I take her lips in a rough kiss, pulling and teasing. She moves and arches a little beneath me, whether seductively or simply to get comfortable, I do not know.

"Erik-" she says, but I cut her off by coming back to her mouth again and again. I take my fingers and cut them into her side. She winces a little but keeps moving in that tantalizing manner, and I peel her nightgown from her shoulders. I am throbbing for her and I move against her without thinking, and I am so overwhelmed by that feeling, so frightened that I will not last, that I forget about precursors and simply pull up her skirt to find home.

She lets out a little whimper at the entrance, but otherwise makes no word of complaint. I do not know if she is saying anything, or trying to stop me, but I cannot think about those things right now. The only thing that is important is to _keep moving_ and_ why must she keep speaking with Raoul...?_

I finish startlingly quickly and pull away at once, disgusted with her, disgusted with myself, and mostly disgusted with Raoul.

Christine reaches up, trying to touch me, but I jerk away from her. Part of me wants to just leave her in here, but I feel a little weak and my heart is pounding, so I bury my face in the pillow and neither of us say anything.

She says eventually, "I will not speak to Raoul if it displeases you. But know, there is nothing about our relationship that should unsettle you."

Just hearing her say the words _our relationship_ makes my stomach coil with anger, and I squeeze the pillow venomously.

"You may not have _any relationships _with anyone up there, Christine. It distracts from your true purpose. And what is your true purpose?"

"To sing for you." Her voice is weak.

"Right." To allow me to obsess over you... I will not have some blonde, handsome man obsess over you.

I will not.

.

When I arrive to pick her up outside of her mirror, she is busy writing something. I click open the mirror and hold it for her, and she leaps to her feet, leaving her writing there.

"Did you hear me today?" she asks.

"I did," I reply gravely.

She gives me a little smile and says in a soft voice, "It was a special present for you. I sang with all my heart."

"It was a fine present- a fine gift."

She giggles delightedly and hold out her arms to me. I lift her up the stone step and I am surprised when she suddenly wraps her arms around me and holds me very tight. I open my mouth to say something, but I find with dismay that there is a well of tears in my throat. I am ashamed that such a simple action creates such a reaction in me, but it is so nice to feel the tender touch of someone I adore. Waiting for a moment, I clear my throat and say, "Ah-it was-er, wrong for me to be so angry with you last night."

She kisses me chest through my heavy suit, and I can still feel it. "I sang so well so you would know it was alright. I love you."

"I... love you, too."

She laughs again. "Try to sound a little more convinced, mmm?"

She begins to sing a light, flowy melody and I pull the mirror shut.

.

While Christine sleeps, I head off for one of my nightly strolls. I go past all my dark hallways and emerge into the darkened backstage. I like this auditorium- it is of a beautiful design, and I am very proud of it, along with the rest of it's architecture. With all of its mindless people crowding it during the day, I do not have the time to enjoy it. But I like it better in the darkness, anyhow. The shadows creep along the walls and make elegant patterns.

And of course, I always go by Christine's dressing room. Once or twice, I have seen thieves paw their way in other rooms, and I will not tolerate such happenings in Christine's room.

To my intense surprise, for the first time, I actually do see a moving figure that happens to be right outside her dressing room. I can tell it is male from the broadness of the shoulders and the pants legs, and I creep closer, intend on dissuading him then and there.

For the first time in my life, my stomach drops and I recoil instantly from this figure. It is none other than Raoul de Chagny!

Such a violent energy fills me that I do not know what to do with myself.

My minds works through the pros and cons of killing Raoul right then and there. Christine would be very unhappy with me... She would not want to sing with me... She would not want to sleep with me. There would be a heavy inquiry, which is always annoying... It would be a bit of effort, and I am tired...

.

When I arrive home, Christine is still sleeping. Seeing Raoul makes me angry at her again, but I let her sleep. She has a busy day tomorrow of rehearsals.

.

Busy day indeed!

Halfway through the rehearsal, I go and find that the cast has been doing choral blocking all morning- and _Christine has been chatting with Raoul!_

It took all my self-control to not just burst in front of everyone right there and snatch her away. She is _mine_, she belongs to me, like a little doll, and he is not allowed!

There is nothing I can do except for rage at nothing in my quiet little spot. I want to get closer, to hear what they are talking about, but I do not trust myself in such close capacity to them. I shove my hands against the wall in acute frustration and feel like ripping my skin off in agony.

But then I have no even seen the worst of it.

They rise, together, still chatting. I see Christine give one, long look around the auditorium, her brows slightly pulled together, and then she follows him out.

Out.

Out.

Gone again?

.

I scream, I kick things. I destroy the entire scene room in my anger, in my pain. In my head, I see her walk out with him again and again, until my mind forces them closer and closer together, until he is practically carrying her out! But no! She went with him willingly! She went willingly, and that hurts the most. It hurts that she left, it hurts that she left a rehearsal without telling me, that she left with him!

.

Time elapses.

My sanity wobbles precariously.

I should have just locked her up from the very beginning. I always knew I was obsessed with her, and allowing her freedom only made her feel that she was not my possession. Well, she is my possession, and most certainly not anybody else's.

.

She comes home, and I grab her.

"What were you thinking, you stupid girl?" I yell, shaking her again and again. "What is wrong with you? Why are you so cruel, so foolish? Why must I keep you on a leash?"

She screams hoarsely as I continue shaking her. "Erik!"

"Why are you so insensibly dumb? How could you be so thoughtless?"

"I had no choice! He was prying, Erik, I could not let him pry, I had to appease him-"

I could care less for her silly excuses! My anger reaches a peak at her arguments, and I throw her down, and she crashes against the floor and the wall.

"YOU WILL NOT DO THAT AGAIN!"

She cries and covers her face.

"YOU ARE NOT WORTHY OF ANYTHING I HAVE TAUGHT YOU!"

"No-no, please-" she begs.

"YOU ARE _MINE_! YOU ARE HERE FOR ONE REASON- TO BE MINE! NOT HIS! _MINE!"_

She cries pitifully, hiding her face in the ground. I hate her, I hate her for hiding her lovely face, when she should have nothing to hide!

"IS HE HANDSOME, CHRISTINE? DO YOU NOT JUST ADORE HOW HANDSOME HE IS?"

"No, no!" she pleads, waving her hands.

"YOU ARE A DISGRACE."

"No, no," she repeats, like a spell of protection. "You love me!"

I grab her hair and hoist her up. "Do I?" I snarl. "It is hard to tell!"

Big, wet tears well up and fall at the same time over her cheeks. I hate how I still think of how beautiful she is, even when she is betraying me.

"Why are you here, Christine? Why are you here!"

"Because I love you," she gasps, trying to pull my hand away from her hair. "To learn! To learn from you! To learn how to be-to be the best m-musician in the world!"

In my head, I am thinking about how I felt when I first began teaching Christine: the wild, explosive feeling of joy and security I felt around her. It made me want to be a different man for her. It made me enamored with her. I grew to want to know everything about, absolutely everything. She changed me, because she loved me. And I changed her, because I was the only one who cared for her.

I do not want anyone else to care for her, because what if she falls in love with them?

Fear is overcoming my fury, but I still keep shaking her to mask my terror. "If he shows you attention, will you run to him? Will you flirt with him and try to draw him to your bed? Does _he_ make you feel wanted?"

"Only you," she whispers, her eyes rolling a little. "Only you."

And then she faints.

.

I carry her to bed, sobbing uncontrollably. I know she wakes, I know she can hear me, but she keeps her eyes closed and her head turned into the pillow. I cry because I have worked so hard for her and I do not want to lose her to something better looking that me. It is not fair.

.

I deliberately stay out of the main room and she departs for the rehearsal quickly and quietly, without coming to me. It is not unexpected, so I simply wait a few minutes and follow her up.

And once there, Christine is nowhere to be seen.

I wait a few minutes or so, hoping she has gone to the washroom. When I continue to grow impatient, I check on her dressing room. That too is empty.

More choral blocking today- they will not be needing Christine. Her absence goes unnoticed.

But not to me.

.

I prowl, and I will find them.

I am very good at that.

.

I find them.

And where of all places?

The roof.

For some reason, I am not particularly incensed yet, probably because I am much too curious to what is going on here, and why she is on the roof.

Raoul is apparently thinking the same thing. "Why are we up here?" he asks, wrinkling his nose.

"Because I need to explain some things to you, and I do not want to risk him overhearing and being hurt. He does not like us speaking."

"Who is 'he'?"

"Raoul," she says sternly, looking at him in the eye. "I am not a free woman."

He stares at her for a moment, and then throws back his head and laughs. "Ah, Christine! How you have been using me!"

"Raoul-" she protests at once.

"Could you not have told me, when I was begging for your courtship? When I was falling over myself to ask you to lunch?"

"I would love to do those things with you, Raoul, but only on friendly terms."

He stops laughing and sighs. "What a fool I have been!"

I cannot help but agree.

"Did you not get my letter? I wrote you a letter several days ago, and left it for you. Did you not get it?"

"No."

She looks concerned for a moment, and I cannot believe she would go behind my back to write him a silly letter. She is writing him love letters now. Oh, the irony!

"I just wanted you to know... I do not wish to hurt you."

He shakes his head. "So... Who is it? May I meet him?"

She blinks, looking shocked. "Why would you want to do that?"

He shrugs. "You are a dear friend. I would simply like to meet your husband, tell him hello. Perhaps share a few embarrassing childhood stories with him."

She pauses. "That is not possible."

He gives her a look. After a pause, he says slowly, "Are you making this up, only because you are not interested in me? I do not see a ring on your finger..."

"No, no, he is real!" she cries. "His name is Erik."

"Erik," Raoul repeats, and I do not want to hear my name on his lips ever again. "So if you are not married, are you living in sin?"

She looks confused, shaking her head. "No..." she says, but she drifts off uncertainly, and I hate him even more for putting such doubts in her head.

"Then let us be honest friends, Christine," he says. "Be honest with me. Do not make a fool of me. Do not make up such stories to simply be rid of me."

She looks even more confused. "I am not making him up," she says, but her voice has a lack of conviction, and even I can see how he may not believe her now. Her eyes are foggy and far away, and I am desperate to know what she is thinking about.

"Christine, I know you. We grew up together. Sometimes you grow confused about what is real and what is not. I remember your stories." He has a gentle, patronizing hum to his voice now. "But I love you regardless. I thought about you all the time, wondered where you got off too. And all this time, you have been just a few blocks away from me, without me realizing it. What a fool I have been!"

She is shaking her head again and again. "I- I am not lying, I am not- I am not crazy, Raoul, you must believe me! Erik is real, he is a man, you see, he is very special. He teaches me how to sing. He lives at the Opera, and I stay there and it is like being in another world, and I sing and I sing, and - I can sing with him like no other!"

Raoul is still staring at her. "A childhood dream," he murmurs. "To have an angel of music come and teach you how to sing." He rubs a curl off her face, I am nearly spasm with seeing him touch her so intimately.

"Yes," she says, looking out into the distance. "Yes, it was..."

She is beginning to cry now, looking confused and hurt, and I am transfixed with those tears, those beautiful tears, and think of how I heard her for the very first time, while she was crying out. And I never questioned why she let me in so quickly, why she jumped at the chance of lessons with someone she had barely met, someone who wore a mask... But she had never asked, never wondered... Only obeyed without question.

"He is not my imagination, I promise," she whispers. "I know I have made up stories before, Raoul, but I swear this is the truth this time!"

"You never lied to me, never. You only said what you thought was real. You used to tell me stories like these when we were children. I think you believe it is real, but think about it... Is it really? Or has it all been like a dream, in your imagination?"

She clutches at her face. "No... No.. I am different from how I was then!"

He comes closer to her, touching first her shoulders, and then pulling her into his arms. "Oh, Christine," he sighs, pulling her close, and I see with horror that she grabs him just as desperately back, holding onto him and continuing to cry into his shoulder.

"Sometimes he scares me," she whispers, biting her lip. "Sometimes I cannot control him... But when we sing, it is almost unreal... Almost unreal...?"

He rocks her, like a baby, and he bends down and kisses her lips.

It is a frozen moment, where I see how closely they are together, how intimately she is wound against him, how her head lifts up and they make a perfectly beautiful couple. I can see the shock on her face, but it does not lessen the emotion I feel.

And then a second later, a cry of rage escapes me, and they both jump with terror in their eyes, and they race far away.

.


	4. Chapter 4

She was wrong. I do not love her. I do not love Christine Daae.

That does not mean I hate her. Hating someone and just generally not caring about them are two very different emotions. I have seen enough dramatic productions to know what real hate is. I hate Raoul de Chagny. I do not hate Christine.

She was wrong all along, and I was right. I am _obsessed_ with her, but I do not love her. I tried so hard, so unbelievably hard, to love her.

I failed her. And she failed me.

.

So convinced am I that she will never return to me, I lock the door to my little house and retreat far into my music room. I play loudly, for hours on end. I cannot hear a single thing, other than the music that I am playing.

I am such a good, musician, you see. But I am sick of writing things for Christine, sick of writing pointless little melodies that have no significance. I want to write something truly startling, something beyond all imagination. I want to make a masterpiece that would challenge even the greatest of singers. The more I dwell on it, the more convinced I am that I could do it. I can do it. I can do it!

My adventure begins now.

.

An obsession is hard to get rid of. I am not going to be so silly to try to convince myself that Christine never existed. Of course she existed- I was obsessed with her. I was obsessed with every little detail on her perfect body, on her perfect face, in her perfect mind.

I do a lot of intense thinking when I am not working on my newest project. I think about how lonely and sheltered she was her whole life, and the long-term effects involved. I think about how she wanted to take her own life simply because she was not wanted, and how a simple interference by me broke up her entire world. I wonder if Christine needs help, real help. But oh well. I can obsess over all of her psychological implications, or I can leave that to Raoul. I did not want to take care of her like a baby, but Raoul seemed perfectly content to do that.

Maybe weeks pass, I do not know. I sleep, I eat, I continue living. But mostly, I work on my opera.

It is thrilling to compose such a piece of genius that I know no one will ever hear. Sometimes I just think about the whole irony of that situation, and I laugh and laugh and laugh.

.

I have the treasured picture of her. Oh, it is beautiful. I stare at it for hours. And I create a shrine for her. With the picture in the middle, I take all her jewelry and underthings and drape it around prettily. I litter the area with the scores of some of her favorite songs. I spray her perfume just a little.

I did not need a shrine when I had her, but now I am almost happier with my shrine.

.

I genuinely miss her at night. When you become used to sleeping with someone, it is very lonely to suddenly be all by yourself in the darkness. The bed feels so uncomfortably large. When it grows really bad, I go and take her black nightgown and lay it next to me. Not the same, but... I must make do.

.

This is time passing.

Time.

.

I had her for only a short six months: three months of lessons, and then three months of something more. What did we have? Even I cannot explain it.

.

It is a period of time where I do not surface. I am aware that I am growing dangerously thin and fatigued, but I continue working myself mindlessly over this work. When my mind is too sluggish to write the complex melodic lines it requires, I work on lyrics. There is no real story, only a collection of obsessions that Don Juan has captured over the years. When one obsession leaves him, or he tires of her, he goes and finds a new one. I think it is good for me to see that it is possible for me to move on. Women are silly things. I am glad I was obsessed with Christine, for it made a large impact on my life. But... like Don Juan, there is always something else to be conquered.

And I am sad sometimes, because I think of the connection Christine and I had, and how long it took to achieve that. I do not want to work that hard again- there is no one else in this world that I could ever imagine holding one/tenth of the possessiveness I held over Christine.

But... I brush her from my mind. My mind has become a very unstable place, and when I do not think of her, I do not have to think about how my life is over.

.

Sometimes when I dream, I wake up and I am not sure if it really happened or not? Did Christine really come down here and sing to me and hold me while I slept? I think not, but... perhaps. The scary ones are when I dream that she comes down and I do not see her, and then when she confronts me, I push her aside and tell her angrily I have to work. She changes, tranforms into an old woman, older and older, until she collapses on the floor in death. I scramble to her, clutching her in my arms, and my tears make her young again. Did that really happen? I think not, but... perhaps.

The less sleep I get, the more I seem to dream when I finally rest.

Sometimes I stare up at the ceiling for what seems like eternity. Aside from the emotional complexities, I miss the physical aspect of her. I miss feeling that explosive longing and fierce release, like something has been building for years and years and suddenly- suddenly- it it hard to explain when she is not here. I miss that. I miss her.

.

At some point, I leave my home.

I go upstairs.

I think of her role that we worked so hard on. That show is over of course- I have missed it. I feel bitterly angrily about that, the first anger I have felt in a long time. Looking at the show schedule, I see that Christine has not been in any shows since then. That makes me even angrier. I feel as though I have not felt anger in a long time.

Three months. That is how long I have been down in my abode. It did not seem like three months. It did not feel like ninety-two days. Such a long time when you put it in days. That long? Why did time fly, even when I was so miserable? If you had asked me how long I had been down there, working on my opera, fantasizing about her, I would have said two weeks, tops.

But three months is long enough for some people. Long enough to get engaged.

.

My second flicker of emotion, after anger, is more anger.

The girls are gossiping about it backstage, about the engagement between the opera diva and the patron.

"Perhaps she is pregnant," one says. "Perhaps that is why they are rushing."

An explosion of fury like I have never known hits me when I think of the implications of that. Just picturing Christine intimately in another's embrace sends ice down my veins and stabs my heart. I want to fall to my knees in anguish, but no. I crushed all emotion in me _that night_. I will not let it return now.

"They are childhood friends," another says. "That must be why."

"I_t_ is still such a rush."

"I wish they would just get married already so she can leave."

"Yes, I am ready for a new star. She is good, but stars do not last very long."

"_I_ shall be the next star!" she proudly proclaims, and they run away laughing.

Without following them to kill them like I want to, for being such annoying brats, I pace around the rehearsal searching for more clues. I find nothing at all to lead me to where Christine might be now. But what I do find is plans for a Costume Ball, plastered all over the architecture I worked so hard on.

It is the stupidest sounding thing I have ever heard, but I know my Christine- ah, she is not mine anymore. Actually- yes, she will be, for the rest of her life. She is still mine. And I know her, and I know Christine could never resist going to a Costume Ball. Christine loves costumes. Christine loves pretend. Christine will be there.

.

My initial plan is to just lurk around and look for her, but I decide I am tired of lurking, so I make a costume of my own from stolen costumes around the opera. It is bright red and for once in my life, I know _everyone_ will be looking at me.

.

_Everyone_ looks at me.

I arrive at the party like any other man, only I stand out. People gape at me as I walk by. It must be the intensity of my costume. Red always does affect the eyesight more than any other color.

But I put aside the stares and work on finding Christine.

My months of loneliness could not have prepared me for what happens when I finally see her.

All of my breath leaves my body, like I have been kicked in the chest. My heart caves in, like half of it has suddenly disappeared, and I am overcome with such a powerful urge to open my arms and just have her fit against me, that I let out a breath of air and stagger against the nearest wall. She is in a pretty black dress with beads and she is holding a feathered mask, which is on the table before her.

My mouth is dry with the sheer anticipation of being so close to her. Who am I to shut out my emotions? I cannot shut them off around her. Everything about her is just so soft and calling so to me- I just want to step forward and shake her after all she has put me through. Why me? Why her?

I come to life in a flash. Three months of deadness- months that felt like only days- wither away in me and I feel anger, hatred, compassion, pity, confusion, lust, hurt, bewilderment, and heartbreak all at once.

It has been three months without her, and I did not even realize. Three months! And she left without so much as a goodbye!

I have no room in my heart to be angry at her when all I want to do is hold her. Damn! What spell has she cast, that makes me so ridiculously obsessed? _What is it about her?_

Just as my body helplessly moves towards her, another figure moves towards her. He is wearing a white suit and a white mask, so that it is hard to recognize him, but simply from his body movement and the way he comes up to her, I know it is Raoul.

And when he touches her shoulder, she puts her hand on top of his hand, and I can see the little diamond ring on her finger. It is not the gaudy, overdone, rich-boy ring I was imagining, but a very simple band with one lone diamond on it.

I seethe, because I wanted to hate it, but it is beautiful and simple, and I know Christine probably adores it.

"Time to leave?" Raoul asks quietly.

"Oh Raoul, we just got here."

Her voice shocks me. It is tired and weak, and it does not sound like her. Peering more intently as she looks up at him, she does not even _look_ like herself. Her hair is perfect, she moves gracefully, but her eyes are tired. She looks very tired and almost sick. I wonder if she has a headache, and it drives me crazy that I cannot know for sure.

"But you look so tired."

"I want to stay for another hour. Then we can leave."

He bends down and kisses her softly on the lips, and I cannot contain a small exclamation of sorrow.

They hear, and they both turn their heads towards me, but I know they cannot see beyond the wall that separates up.

"Did you hear that, too?" she asks Raoul, fearfully confirming that it was not just in her mind.

"Probably just someone sneaking away from the party. Like you are." He muses her hair, and says, "Should I go and get you a drink?"

"Yes, please," she murmurs thankfully, and he disappears.

As soon as he is gone, I can no longer restrain myself, and I leap out from the crevice in the wall in front of her.

She jumps so hard she almost falls off of her chair and opens her mouth in a scream. I make another leap and put my hands over her mouth just as she releases a muffled, high-pitched squeal. I had not prepared myself for the act of touching her again, and I am momentarily overcome by just the sensation of her, with my one arm around her, and the other one touching her perfect face, her painted lips.

"Christine..." I whisper, and she knows my voice above all else, and she freezes, her eyes darting to look at me with terror. She shakes her head, her eyes still desperately afraid, and I am confused at her fear.

I let her go, assuming she would not scream any longer, but I am very wrong, and she screams absolutely bloody murder as soon as my hand falls from her. Swearing, I know I cannot stay now, and rather than hide behind walls, I wrench open the door to another room and go through it impatiently.

People stare at the intensity of my costume, looking at me with a bubble of raised voices. I brush them all aside angrily, and someone reaches out to touch me.

I grab his wrist, flames in my eyes. "_How dare you!"_ I hiss, and his eyes contract in fear, and suddenly, it is Christine I am holding. "_Do you not know that I am Red Death?"_

He struggles to free himself and I drop him, and suddenly it is Christine I am throwing to the floor in my anger.

I laugh like a maniac and sweep far away.

.

My musings take me in a frenzy in the catacombs of my home, until I find myself outside of her mirror. I look painfully into her dressing room, ignoring the blow after blow to my chest. I do not know how much more I can take of this. I need her back here, I need my obsession. I am obsessed with it! I am obsessing with obsessing over her!

To my intense surprise, I am only there for a few minutes when the door flies open and Christine comes in, sobbing something terrible. She slams the door shut behind and her and comes right up to the mirror, sitting on the floor and pressing her head against it as she sobs.

I am only feet away from her, but she cannot see me. She does not know I am there. I touch her head through the glass, but all I feel is the hard and cold surface.

It is impossible to resist. I pull open the mirror.

She leaps back on her knees, and I think she is going to faint again, the way she sways, so I reach out and grab her to keep her from falling backwards. As soon as I seize her hair, she screams and buries her face in her hands, sliding away from me.

I say hoarsely, "Christine?"

I am still in the ridiculous red and I am not wearing a mask, and I have never regretted it more. But I am too curious to hide my face from her. I let go of her and repeat, "Christine? Why are you-why are you like this?"

She peeks through her fingers and says, "Who are you?"

I crouch to my knees quizzically and look at her pretty eyes. A strange feeling rises up in my throat. "Christine, do you-do you not remember? I am Erik-"

"Yes, I know you are Erik!" she snaps, still sliding away from me. "I do not understand..."

I stare at her aghast, irritated and befuddled by the lack of sense she is making. "What the hell is going on with you? What do you mean, _who am I_?"

She finally removes her hands, but continues to cry a little. "I thought you were make-believe..." she whispers.

I look down at her, my heart softening but my asperity rising. Half of me keeps seeing how Raoul kissed her, and I want to cover my face and sob.

"What do you mean?" I ask very softly.

"Raoul," she says in the same quiet voice. "He said you were in my head. I used to have problems when I was little, with imaginary friends and deciphering what was real and what was not. My father... he thought it was just me being a silly girl, but Raoul was always worried for me. He used to tell his governess these things, and one time she took me away and brought me to a doctor..." her eyes filled with more tears. "Papa was enraged when he found out, and then I was not allowed to see Raoul anymore."

"And what did he tell you about us-about me?"

"I used to tell him that the Angel of Music came to me at night," she cried. "When I was a little girl. My Papa told me he would one day, and I got sick of waiting, so I just told Raoul that he had come. But it was made up... All made up! And now, so many years later, I am blessed to have him again. _He_ is real, he is not made up... He said you were made up! I told him all about you, how you taught me how to sing, how I lived under the Opera with you, how beautiful you were... He did not believe me. He is keeping me away from the Opera now. He thinks it is bad for me."

A howl of rage escapes my throat. "You belong here!" I roar. "You belong here!"

She looks up at me. "I thought I belonged with you."

"You belong _with_ me, to _sing _here."

"You were obsessed with me."

"I still am."

"Then why did you leave me?" she cries.

"You left me!" I accuse harshly. "You ran up to the roof with Raoul, you believed him when he said I was not real, and you never returned!"

"Never returned?" she echoed in horror. "I came back every night for weeks! The door was locked, Erik, I could not get in! I pounded on it for hours and hours, and you never came. And then I could not prove you were real! You were not there! I told Raoul how you waited behind the mirror, and I tried to open it to show him, but I could not, and he did not believe me! You broke my heart! I thought you no longer existed! I thought you were gone, because you were only in my mind! Oh my, you _are_ real!"

"I will kill him," I vow. "I will."

"No!" She grabs my arm painfully. "He has only helped me."

"Help you?" I explode. "Help you? He has imprisoned you! He has made you doubt yourself!"

"He took care of me," she says. "When you did not."

"I-"

"I called for you. For weeks and weeks. Three months. You abandoned me. I could have been dead for all you cared!"

And her words turn angry instead of hysterical.

I have no excuse. Only that it made sense at the time.

"I am real," I say, rising to my feet. "I am real, and I will prove it to your Raoul. Let us go see him! And then I will take you down with me, where you belong!"

"Three months," she repeats. "And you act as thought we can continue from the day we left off!"

"Well, why not?" I demand.

"Things... have changed."

"How so?"

She innocently twists the ring on her finger.

"NO!" I scream. "I am real, and you belong to me, not him! He tricked you, but now that I am back, you will come back with me!"

"But what happens when you leave me again?" she says in a panic. "I thought I could depend on you. I was wrong. You_ left_ me!" she says again, as if I have not yet grasped. I went nowhere. I was simply at home, and so convinced I was that she left me, that I never bothered to consider that she was trying to return to me.

"But you can depend on Raoul, can you?" I spit.

"Yes," she says honestly.

I let out a sound of frustration, but I turn away so she cannot see the tears building up in my eyes. If only I could explain to her that I thought she had left me... That was why I shut her out. But three months... I did not mean to abandon her for three months. I thought it was only a few days...

"Raoul loves me," she says with a pause. "Do you?"

I do not look at her.

How am I to say anything? She _knows_ that I do not know if I love her. I am sick of saying the words to her if they do not mean anything.

"See?" she cries dramatically. "You do not love me! And you will leave me again! You tricked me, Raoul was right! Is this all in my mind? _Am I going crazy?_"

She runs away, and I just stand there, and think about how I just want to go home and put on my mask.

.

I walk through the catacombs again and call for her every few seconds.

"Christine! Christine!"

There is never an answer.

.

I afraid to go back home for too long. I am afraid time will pass too quickly, and what I think is only a day will be a few months.

So I change and don my mask, and go right back up and wait.

She has left the party. But that is fine. I will simply stay up here.

And wait for her to come back.

I will wait.

I can wait.

.

I _know_ she will come back.

.

She comes back looking terrible. Her eyes are swollen with lack of sleep. I watch her come in, trying to retrain myself from tackling her on the spot, and simply follow her through the walls until she goes into her dressing room and sits right on the floor, as if just waiting for me.

Triumphant, I instantly pull open the mirror. She looks up at me. "Have you just been... waiting there? For how long?"

"I do not know. When did I last see you?"

"Last night," she says.

I blink in shock. I do not understand how three months can feel like a few days, but one day can feel like weeks.

Regardless, I extend my hand to her. She eyes it warily.

"I feel like... it has all been a dream," she mutters. "When I am with Raoul, I forget all about you and your world. But when I am with you, I forget all about Raoul and the world here."

"Then come with me," I coax. I am eager for her to forget about Raoul.

She hesitates.

But then she take my hand and a bubble of excitement bursts in my chest at her contact.

.

As soon as we walk inside the house, she bursts into tears.

"I went three months thinking this was only a dream," she says, shaking her head and sniffing. "Thinking it was not real. And now, I remember everything perfectly, and I wonder how I could have ever imagined life without this."

"Yes, yes," I say persuasively. "This is where you belong. With me."

She goes to each of the rooms, and I realize a split second too late that I did not disassemble her shrine.

I watch her stare at it, reach out and caress the picture of herself, running her hands over her jewelry, hesitantly touching her undergarments. When she turns to look at me, her face is only quizzical.

I shrug. "I missed you."

She smiles.

.

And then when we sing, she is overcome again.

I partly think it is funny, and I am partly annoyed. "What now?" I ask.

"Raoul is wrong," she sobs. "You _are_ an angel."

"No, I am not," I say patiently.

She comes closer and wraps her arms around my neck and buries her face against my shoulder. I let her stand like that for a few minutes, before I say, "Alright, we should keep-"

But she cuts me off almost violently by pressing her lips against mine again and again. An electric charge that seems vaguely foreign to me shoots from my lips to all around my body, finally circling down to my groin. She turns me around a little with her hands while still meeting her lips to mine over and over, and she takes my face for further leverage and pulls me closer to her. I mumble a little into her mouth, but I cannot even tell you what I was trying to say.

.

I half-carry her into the bedroom while she is simultaneously pulling me in after her. Have I forgotten this feeling, or simply repressed it? Let me tell you, it is extremely dangerous to go so long without this feeling and then suddenly be brought back into it. I am starving for it, I am desperate, and I have no patience.

Luckily, Christine seems to feel the same way. She opens her dress for me and sprawls out in invitation, and it is too much for me to refuse.

And... it is like home again. It is like not even knowing how much I missed this feeling, not just sexually, but in the way that I felt much better, much more myself. I felt... I cannot find the word for it.

She moans and scratches at me, her hair all a mess against the bed, and my vision grows impaired with love for her.

She whispers, "I like this world better."

.

Afterward, I lay against her and I stroke her face very gently.

"You want to stay down here," I say. It is a question.

She nods.

"But you feel like you have to go back up to Raoul."

She nods again, slower this time.

"When I am up there," she admits, "I feel guilty for wanting this world. I feel like I should make an attempt to be a more normal person."

"You never have been a normal person," I say in protest.

She looks at me, her hand tightening around me. "When Raoul says that, he makes me sound sick. But it sounds so lovely when you say it..."

I gently brushed my lips across her forehead, and her eyes flutter closed.

"I have to go back up," she whispers. "I... told Raoul I would marry him."

I stiffen around her, and she feels this. "Why?"

"Because... I did not want to be alone," she explains. "Raoul will take care of me my whole life. He knows me. He can lead me into good."

"As can I!" I say angrily.

"But... what if you disappear again?" she asks in a small voice. "What if you grow angry? What if you find you can never love me? You are too unpredictable."

"But you love me more than Raoul, right?" I ask, and I cannot disguise the desperate sense of hope in my voice.

"Yes," she says simply.

It seems to absurdly simple to me, that I can hardly imagine the difficulty she is having! "Then stay with me," I say in a luring voice, and she looks at me as if she wants to, but cannot. I can hardly bear it.

"It is a decision," she admits. "But one thing is for sure- I must go back up soon, or Raoul will be looking for me."

"Let him look," I scoff.

She looks at me with sad eyes. "We were only friends," she whispers. "We were only friends until you forced him to be something more for me. Please, never do that again. Please, do not leave me like that."

I stare at her wordlessly.

I _forced_ them together?

Impossible.

.

I physically cannot bear to let her go. I wrestle with her behind the mirror.

"I will come back," she promises.

"Is there a sure way to keep you down here with me instead of with the Vicomte?"

"I... do not know..."

"Christine," I say suddenly, overtaken by a powerful idea. "Christine, marry me instead."

"I used to think we were married before," she says in surprise. "Or was that pretend, too?"

"Not pretend, but official. I will get you a pretty ring, and you can take _this_ thing-" I curl my hand around her fourth finger, "-off."

"I-I-"

"You said yourself you had a decision to make. But let me tell you this, Christine- no matter what you choose, I will never let you go. If you marry Raoul, I will still be obsessed with you. You will still be the center of my universe. Nothing will change. I will follow you to the end of the world, because I am part of you and you are part of me."

She stares deep into my eyes, as if trying to read beyond what I am saying. "How can I marry you if you do not love me?"

I kiss her very gently. "When I was unsure, you always told me I loved you. You told me again and again, every night. You would remind me all the ways I love you. I do not know how to love. I forget what are signs of love. Remind me again, Christine. Be my wife and convince me of my love."

Her fingers reach out as I am speaking and gently brush my masked face. I close my eyes at the contact. She does not know, but inside, I am wrestling with the urge to throw myself down at her feet and hold onto her legs, refusing to let her go.

"Please do not make me wait long," I say. "Please come back to me."

She gives me another look, and kisses me, and then turns into her dressing room.

I cannot resist, and I call out, "Christine!"

She turns.

"You need to come back to the Opera. You need to be onstage."

Her eyes flutter to the ground, defeated. "I know," she admits. "I want to... I just was not sure if I could... do it without you."

"You have me," I say bracingly. "Faust is in four weeks. You have four weeks up here to think, to tell Raoul that you belong in my world. Sing the opening night, and then we will disappear. You and me together."

She is so tempted, but she is also reserved. "I... shall have to see," she whispers. Before she turns away, she says, "You promised me the world, and then made me think it was all make-believe. I do not want to do that to Raoul." She touches her ring. "I do not want him to think it was all a game. I know what it is like to be abandoned by the one who you love. How can I do that to him, when he loves me, and I love you, and you love no one?"

I close the mirror quickly, but continue to stand there, hoping to watch her for a few more minutes, but she instantly walks right out.

.


	5. Chapter 5

Relief floods my system when I see her go and talk to the managers, and then once again when I see her name on the tentative program. She has decided to sing the show, and I know that she will choose me.

She loves me.

But ultimately, she loves me music. And I know she cannot be away from my music, and I am willing to use that against her if that is what it takes to get her back down here with me.

.

For the first day of rehearsal, when she comes in her dressing room, I am behind the mirror and ready to pounce on her, but she enters followed closely by Raoul de Chagny.

"And I can wait for you each day," he is saying, an uncharacteristically concerned look on his face. "And if you grow tired, you must let someone know so you can sit down-"

"Raoul! I am not sick! I have done this before, you know!"

"Yes, but it has been a few months, and I know it will be difficult getting back into it," he says. "I am only thinking of you."

She sighs, but it is more of a loving, impatient sigh than an exasperated one, and she reaches out her hand and pats him fondly on the chest; my fists clench. "Raoul, I know. You do take care of me so well, and I adore it. But not with singing. You must let me alone when I am singing."

He bows a little, almost mockingly. "Of course, my love."

I sneer at him. Even hidden, I am acting like I do not care of him, that I am not affected by every little movement he makes. Christine seems quite at ease around him, and it simply throws me as I try to comprehend how sudden this change in her occurred... but with a sad thought, I realize that there was three whole months that she associated with Raoul while I was not watching. Who knows what happened between them then? Who knows how comfortable they really got...?

A new thought flashes into my mind that makes me grit my teeth together and spin furiously away from the mirror. Did she sleep with him? Did she let him caress her, did she let him undress him with his hands?

I quickly emasculate him in my mind and tell myself that it has not happened, that she would not do such a thing, that three months would be too short of a time for Christine to... Ah... I cannot stop thinking about it!

Raoul kisses her and she tilts her head up dutifully as she bid him farewell. The door has barely closed when I leap out and snatch her, pushing her against the wall.

"Did you sleep with Raoul?" I snarl, and inch from her face.

"I-Erik, no! Of course not!" She squirms, and then looks up at me with shadowed eyes. "How could you ask such a thing! We are not married! One does not sleep with a man she is not married to!"

"You sleep with me!"

She blushes a little. "Well... that is different. You are different from normal people."

For some reason, her words only make me grip her harder. "Because I am ugly? Because I am ugly, it is okay to make love with me, because what-? I do not count?"

She turns away. "No! That is not what I mean. You are just... You and I are just different."

"Stay with me. For the next four weeks during rehearsal. I will take good care of you and help you rehearse your role."

She twists away from me, still not looking at me. "Why are you doing this to me?" she asks in a hurt voice. "You know I must refuse. You know I have to stay at my house, or Raoul will think I have been kidnapped or something?"

"When have you ever stayed at your house?" I ask in disbelief. "Even before me, you stayed at the Opera overnight, hiding from the cleaning crew... And then you stayed with me. Why would you rather be in an empty house? Unless- you are staying with Raoul?"

"No, no!" she says as I advance towards her.

"Why so frazzled, dear?"

"Because what you are saying is not true!" she says angrily, and to my discomfort, her eyes are filling with tears. She snatches up her script and royally leaves the room.

.

Rehearsals progress painfully slowly. Sometimes I watch, sometimes I do not. Sometimes I stay at home and work on my music. Sometimes I pace and talk aloud, imagining what I would say to Christine if I were meeting her for the first time.

.

While she is singing through Il était un roi de Thulé_, _I happen to look up and watch as Raoul is coming in, talking swiftly to one of the doormen, and then going over to one of the side doors to where the manager's office is.

So I follow.

"Gentlemen," I hear him say as soon as I am close enough. "I must speak to you about a matter of great importance concerning our young star."

M. Moncharmin gives M. Richard a bewildered look. "Then go ahead and say it, if you please!"

"I have cause to believe that she is being bothered by a man who lives in this theatre."

My heart drops in surprise at these words, and without warning, a cool fire begins to smolder inside my stomach. Oh, and he was telling Christine I was make-believe, was he? What man tells his future wife something is not real when he thinks it is real himself!

"A man who lives at the Opera?" Richard says in shock.

"Oh yes. I believe he is hiding here, and makes prey upon young girls, such as our Christine!"

I laugh at this.

Moncharmin and Richard look as though they are having similar sentiments. "What madness is this?"

"I swear, it is true, sirs. Christine has told me of them! He lives underground and he has carried her away on more than one occasion to teach her music!"

The managers exchange another pair of startled looks. "Well, there is nothing wrong with that, is there?"

"You do not feel alarmed by this? You do not think this is a matter for investigation?"

"I think you are listening to a child's overactive imagination," Richard said shortly. "I have heard many stories about mademoiselle Daae, and her stories. She is quite the dreamer- so I hear."

While they are talking, I lift my hand up and examine it closely. I _am_ real, am I not? Why is everyone so convinced I am simply a figment of her imagination?

"I _urge_ you both to look into this matter," Raoul continues, looking undeterred from their lack of enthusiasm on his little project. Only after a couple 'very well''s and 'of course''s, does Raoul finally leave.

I go back to Christine, but she has finished her run-through and it sitting off the stage, staring dreamily into space.

.

As last week of rehearsals come to a close, I finally get her alone without Raoul in her dressing room.

I am overcome with a need to simply touch her. I feel as though I have been without her for so long, that every added day I go without her simply adds to the magnetism I will have towards her when I finally see her. Sometimes, even when she is not with me, I feel like there is nothing I can do - sit, sleep, stand - without wanting to have her next to me and close to me.

I all but fall into her arms, and then slide down to her feet, crouched before her. "Come back with me," I plead. "Oh, Christine, I beg of you... When I am not with you, I am so lost, I am so lost! There is nothing I can do if you presence is not beside me. Leave the show behind and come with me!"

She touches the top of my head gently. "You wanted me to be in this show," she reminds me. "I am doing this for you. I am singing for you."

"Come with me."

"And leave rehearsals? And abandon the show?"

"Yes. Yes. For me."

Her hand continues touching my head soothingly. "And what if you abandon me?"

"Christine," I say, my anger growing in my throat. "I never abandoned you- never!"

"You locked me out and made me believe you were not real."

I-I did not _mean_ to-"

I clutch at her again. I cannot bear her disappointment.

"Can you tell me you love me and mean it?" she asks patiently.

"It is not my fault I cannot love!" I gasp.

"Everyone can love."

I throw myself completely on the ground, laying at her feet. "Christine, Christine," I say desperately. "How I am obsessed with you! How I care for you! How I am interested in every little thing you do! That is love, is it not?"

She shrugs daintily. "I need you to come to that conclusion." She stares at me for a few seconds, her eyes looking young. "Oh, Erik," she sighs. "How I cared for you, too."

.

The night before the shows opening, there is a dreadful downpour outside that has been making many people late. It is not like Christine to be late to a rehearsal, no matter what the weather may be. I pace anxiously, waiting for her. If she is not here in five minutes, I will go out and fetch her myself.

Five minutes come and five minutes go, and I am about to go charging into the streets, when handsome Raoul arrives with my perfect Christine on his arm. Her eyes are straight ahead and Raoul is continuously glancing around, as if looking for something out of place.

I stalk them all the way into her dressing room. Raoul opens his mouth to say something, but she quickly waves her hands to quite him down. "Hush!I-I must prepare myself for rehearsal! I am so very late. I need a few minutes alone to compose myself. Then I will be right out."

He stares at her intently, and then leaves without so much as a farewell.

Instantly, she turns to the mirror and I am crawling out, triumphant.

"The show will run, and then you will come back to me," I announce.

She reaches her hand out. "Will you... be at the rehearsal today?"

"Of course - why would I not be?"

She draws back, looking conflicted. "Oh! I-I do not know."

I come closer to her, reaching for her hand. "You will come back down with me, and all will be as before. Only better. Only better! I will make it even better for you down there. And you will be the happiest of women."

Her eyes grow soft, but she reaches her hand out to me consolingly. "Erik, I have to tell you something-"

I shush her. I just want to hold her.

"No, Erik, this is serious-"

"I will never ever lock you out again," I assure her, holding her to me tightly. "Never ever. You can stay with me for eternity, and you never have to do another show again. You can sing for me, you can just keep singing every day for me, I swear I will never grow tired of it."

"I have to talk to you about tomorrow night-"

"Tomorrow night will be the most beautiful show ever, and you will sing it all for me, right?"

"Yes, but-"

"And then you will come down with me"

"Yes, but only if you-"

"And everything will be as before?"

"Erik!"

At that moment, knocking sounds at her door, and it is Raoul, calling through the door, "Christine? Christine, are you dressed?"

She pushes me towards the mirror, and I climb back in it, smiling at her and still clutching her hands. "Erik, listen to me, you have to help me-"

"Christine, don't worry about anything, all will be well. All you must do is sing for me, and everything will turn out wonderful."

"But Erik, Raoul-"

The door jiggles. "Christine? Are you alright? Who are you speaking to?"

"I- I am coming!" she says frantically, and I let her go and swing the mirror shut.

.

She runs off onstage to do pre-show rituals, and I watch Raoul from a corner. He is chatting amiably with some men and sipping a glass of champagne, but he keeps glancing nervously up at Christine and checking his pocket-watch. I grow bored of him and go to meet Christine. To my surprise, she walks off the stage to the makeup station and begins to cry.

And damnit, Raoul is there before I can go to her. I want to wring his neck just for being so annoying.

"Christine, Christine," he says soothingly. "All will be over soon."

She says nothing, but turns away from him and presses her hand into her face so he can't see her tears. This pleases me a bit, that she is refusing his attention- but then I wonder if she would refuse _me_, as well.

"If this is too much for you, you can come away with me now," he says.

She shakes her head blindly, reaching out for a hand towel. "No, no. I am singing tonight, Raoul."

I step closer.

"I do not want you to feel like you are obligated-" he begins, but she swats him away.

"I _want_ to sing, can you not understand that, Raoul?"

He retreats from her, looking puzzled and nervous by her behavior. "I will come fetch you at the curtain as soon as it closes," he promises. "And then we will be gone before anyone can notice us."

"Yes, yes, right, of course."

A strange, numb feeling rises up in my chest and goes straight to my fingertips. What are they talking about? What does that mean? He is coming to take her after the show-take her away from ME?

When I have enough sense to focus in on them again, Raoul is giving her a little kiss and then he departs, while she turns away, looking nervously into the mirror in front of her. I burst out from the shadows, just as she turns and walks into the crowded backstage hallways.

.

My mind explodes.

My heart shatters.

Christine is running away tonight with Raoul.

.

My mind explodes again.

My heart cannot shatter anymore.

Christine is running away from me.

.

I might have killed Christine herself if she had reappeared back offstage. I search for Raoul with a vengeful eye, but he too has vanished, somewhere into the growing crowds of the theatre. Lucky for him, eh? Lucky indeed!

My first insticnt is to attack. It doesn't matter what it is, so long as I can attack it. But these moments fly quickly by and then I am left with an empty feeling of despair and pain. I do not want to attack Christine, no matter what she does to me, but that does not mean she is entirely innocent. Why is she fleeing me so quickly? She did not even give me a warning. This is what I get for giving her the lessons she needed to become a star? What has _Raoul_ ever given her that could begin to _compare_?

_He can love her..._

.

And even though I feel as though I am standing there for hours, it has only been a few seconds. My heart still pounds in absolute shock and almost a sort of joy that I have finally caught her in such an explicit betrayal.

.

Another few seconds pass before I realize, wait a moment, why am I just standing here fuming about it? I am not a man of words- I am a man of action. This is _my_ Opera House. You go when I say you can go. I do not have to let Christine leave, it is that simple. Perhaps I was foolish, making a big deal about how she must choose between Raoul and I. The correct answer is to choose me, and there is no other option. There is no other option! Why did I even _offer _another option? Is she so stupid that she will actually consider that, too?

A plan is rapidly set. It can be dreadfully simple. No one has to be hurt.

This all could have controlled in the first place. I should have never let her out of my home once I had her down there. It is all my fault, clearly all my fault. I gave her freedom, and this is what she chooses to do with it?

Walking with a purpose now, I go straight into my shadows, through the wall, and to the gas light square. I knock out the teller quite easily, and laugh gaily when I see just how _easy _this whole ordeal can be.

I wait, just a little bit, pacing and singing to myself. There is plenty of the shows beginning that Christine will not be a part of. The first act is almost over-she will be getting into costume and vocalizing now.

Slowly, I step out of the secluded area and go upstairs walking right out in the open. No one even looks up at me, the few people who are still out in the lobby hardly seem to notice me storlling by. The de Chagny box is all the way at the end, the second closest to the stage. In my head, I see myself killing Raoul without a sound, simply cutting off his air supply for a few good minutes, and then maybe slamming his head into the floor a few times for good measure. I have to blink a few times to get it out of my head, and remember that I am just imagining it, and not really doing it. Sometimes I get so confused about what is reality...

I pass his box simply because I do not care about him and he does not care about me, and I will make sure that he will no longer care about Christine.

.

_I will make sure everything goes according to my plan!_

_._

I grow impatient. This first act is much too long. Perhaps she does not even need to be onstage.

I appear without warning in the middle of the backstage commons, sliding out through a concealed entrance. There are only about half a dozen people there, and every single one of them lets out a shriek that can certainly be heard out on the stage when they see me. I am completely covered, so that they might not even know I am human, if the are standing out of the thin light. They scatter, even as more heads pop in to see the commotion, and I walk calmly out through the dressing room area, where everyone has rushed out of to see who screamed.

Christine is in the doorway of her dressing room, her eyes closed, trying to sing a little under her breath while one woman sticks a pin in her wig and another wraps a shawl around her waist. I smile grimly at how silly she looks in the costume, but smile even wider when I think how pretty she is underneath all that nonsense.

I let her take just enough steps on the stage that she will be seen.

And then , watching her from the gas light square, I push the runner down.

And then she is unseen.

In the confusion, everyone is yelling offstage in hushed voices, trying to not run into anyone, while I evade them and feel Christine fumbling around in her ridiculous costume in the dark. I reach out for her and she pulls away and says, "Who is that? What happened? Did something go wrong?"

I chuckle, and she instantly realizes it is me and hesitates. "What are you doing here..?" she asks in confusion.

I grab her hands a little rougher than I intended and pull her with me.

"Where are we going? Erik? Erik! The show, Erik, what are you doing?"

I shove her into one of the trap doors just as the lights fly back on. I jump in behind her and seal it.

.

Unbelievably, she starts to cry. "You ruined the show! Why did you ruin the s-?"

"Shut up," I tell her cheerfully. "Oh darling, just be quiet and do not speak. Just never speak. Simply look at me and do as I say, and you shall be perfect."

"W-what... I..."

"Shhh," I reiterate, pushing her ahead of me. "Let's go home, you and I, and we never have to leave again."

"Erik-"

I grab the back of the dress and slam her into the wall- she screams and throws her hands over her face. "Why are you not listening?" I ask sharply. "All I ask is that you not speak, is that so much to ask for?"

The cheap fabric tears in my hand, and I am thankful that now I will have an excuse to take the ugly thing off when we are home. She spins around, leaning away from me, and I see that her face is cut up from the uneven slopes on the wall, marring her pretty forehead and nose. This makes me absolutely furious that my possession is harmed and not perfect. Grasping her arm firmly in mine, I drag her along behind me.

"Erik, you must let me speak! You must tell me what is going on, what happened to the show.. our plan, Erik? Our plan? You told me I would do one show and then I could come down here forever..."

I reach my hand back to hit her, but I stop myself in time. "OUR plan? OUR plan? Yes, Christine, what about OUR plan?"

She recoils, and looks at me with wide eyes.

"And what about your plan with Raoul, hmm? What about HIS plan?"

At this she blanches, and cries, "Oh Erik, I tried to tell you, I tried last night, remember! I wanted you to save me from it!"

We approach my house, our home. I open the door and point her in. "Get in," I say quietly.

There is something unreadable in her eyes; maybe she knows that when she steps in, she will never leave again. I wonder how it feels, to be her?

I am so obsessed with her...

Silently, she obeys.

.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: It's been a long time, friends. **

.

She turns around instantly, her face set as though she is assuming she can talk her way out of this rationally. "Erik, both you and Raoul were-"

I grab her with all my might so her words stop and knock her so hard against the wall that her eyes roll back for a moment and her head drops down. "Yes darling, tell me more about the delightful plans you had with Raoul. I am quite eager to hear them myself from your mouth!"

She gasps, slumping in my arms, and I drop her on the floor, looking down at her. I want to be standing over her, I _want_ to be looking down at her, to see her on the floor where she belongs. Christine was nothing before she met me, and I can return her to nothing if I so wish!

"Erik," she said softly. "Please, I only ask you listen..."

"I have been listening. I have been listening too closely."

"No, listen to _me_."

"WHY SHOULD I LISTEN TO YOU?" I scream, suddenly so incensed at the idea that she is trying to speak to me rationally, after such a heartless betrayal "WHY SHOULD I LISTEN TO YOU NOW? WHY SHOULD I HAVE LISTENED TO YOU EVER?"**  
**

"You should have listened to me before!" she cried, reaching her hand out. "I tried to tell you in my dressing room! I tried-"

"YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED!"

"Erik, I told Raoul-"

"YOU ARE NOT WORTHY OF ADORATION."

"Erik, please!"

I cannot even take looking at her anymore. I turn on my heel and begin to pace in front of her, with her still crumpled on the ground. In a way, it kills me that this is actually happening. This night was supposed to be the moment where she chose me, of her own free will! And now I was going to have to _make her?_ That wasn't what I had wanted to do!

.

_Ah, this is love, Erik._

.

"I only told Raoul that she he would believe me," she says all in a rush, falling over her words. "I told him after the opera, I would go to him when I was changed. I knew that I would be going with you. And I knew by the time he grew suspicious and came looking for me, I would be long gone. I thought it was a good plan. I did! And I tried to tell you about it in my dressing room!"

"Good plan, indeed!" I snarl. "And how can I _really_ trust that perhaps you were only saying it to _me _in falsehood, so that you could truly run away with Raoul! That seems like the better option!"

"No, you know I had to say it!"

She is looking at me with such sincere eyes, and I hate to think that I want to believe her.

"I was coming down here with you!" she says, and her eyes fill with that inconsolable wetness that gathers and then finally drips down her cheeks, over a few minor scrapes that decorate her face. "I promise on my life. I have always wanted to be with you. Always! But you left me, and that is the only reason I was with Raoul at all, I promise!"

"You love him, because he is beautiful and because he loves you."

"No!"

"Christine, you have played with both of us! You cannot have us both! PICK ONE OR THE OTHER. IT IS VERY SIMPLE."

She suddenly seems to regain her senses a bit better after being slammed into a wall, and begins to crawl towards me with her hands out in a very placating gesture. "I only want you to understand. I led Raoul to believe an untruth to make it all much easier for me to come down here, with you. I did not want him prying. You understand this. You are smart."

"DO NOT PATRONIZE ME."

"Don't yell, Erik. I am speaking the truth."

I could care LESS if what she is saying is the truth, honestly! I hate her for being here, acting so innocent time and time again. I am half crazed with anger at myself, perhaps, for it was I who gave her all those opportunities to be with Raoul, to develop a relationship with him! As soon as I had seen him, I should have locked her down here with me.

She continues to look up at me with those eyes, and I am so damn confused about everything that I almost wish she were gone so I simply wouldn't have to deal with the frustration of it all. When I look at her, I feel all this anger and distrust that makes me want to hurt her and crush her, and yet at the same time, the physicality of it brings me to sexual thoughts, of holding her down and hurting her in different ways for me, yet at the same time, those thoughts unbearably bring me to thoughts of her sitting by me, of her laughing with me, of her singing with me and holy hell I can hardly stand it.

I think I am about to snap and as I finally move towards her to kill or or hug her, the most astounding of things happen.

There is a knock at the door.

Both of us freeze together, and in unison, turn towards the door.

I hiss like a snake. "Ah, I see. So you brought him down here with you, did you?"

I thoroughly enjoy watching Christine's face completely and utterly blanch in terror. For once, she is aware of her sins. "It wasn't like that," she whispers. "It was when I told him about you, and he insisted you were imaginary... I brought him down to prove it to you, but I knocked on the wall forever... He thought I had gone mad, knocking and yelling at a blank stone..."

"Or did he?" I ask evenly, moving towards the door with defined grace. "Because he seems to be doing the same thing, right now..."

I move closer to the door until I am right at it. And suddenly Christine lurches forward. "Don't open it!" she cries. "Forget him. Don't let him in. He doesn't belong in here!"

I laugh softly. "Did he belong here when you brought him here, last time?"

She looks up imploringly. "Please don't hold that against me," she asks.

This is getting infuriating funny to me. What had happened to our peace? The contentment we had found in each other before the arrival of Raoul de Chagny? If only he had never arrived... we could have had _no problems._

"Your choice was to leave me," she said. "Your choice affected us all, as did the choices I made afterwards! But Erik... I don't love him! I love you!"

"And what if I don't love you, Christine?" I sneer. "Who will you choose then? The man who swears he will love you forever, or the one who knows he never can?"

"You," she says, without batting an eye.

I rather hate her at the moment, and I glare at her for a second before I turn away. There is a knock at the door. I must answer it.

"Erik, please..." she begs one last time.

I ignore her and I go to answer it. Not many people have knocked upon my door. I feel rather like a normal man being able to answer it. So with a great flourish, I pull upon the door, and who else, but Raoul de Chagny?

The look he gives me is one of disgust, but it is also very amusing to see the fear mingled with it.

"So you are real," he says at once, and he takes a step back away.

I laugh, very very loudly. "A conclusion I am sure you have made much earlier, my friend! May I welcome you into my home? Please please, my friend, come on inside my home! I have something very special inside here... Your future bride, perhaps?"

Christine is crying again. I am sick of her tears. Does she think I will continue to comfort her? Who has ever comforted me when I cried?

Raoul de Chagny hesitates for a moment, before he rushes over to her. And I allow it. I am a gracious host, clearly.

It no longer hurts me to see his hand upon her. There is no pain involved. You know why there is no pain? _Because I have no fucking love for Christine Daae._

"Raoul," Christine says, and her voice is cold and shallow at the same time. "Raoul, there is much we must talk about."

"Indeed!" he says, and I laugh, very loudly, at his voice. They both look at me for a moment, as if I have lost my mind. Oh, I lost that a long time ago, lovers!

"Raoul-"

"We must leave."

"Why did you come down here, Raoul? How did you know this was his home? When I brought you down last time, you said I was insane for knocking on a wall of stone. You said I was crazy. You made me go to a doctor, Raoul. Why?"

"I-I thought it was false, at first," he blubbers, smoothing her hair back. "My God, your face. What happened to your face?"

This is getting to be the greatest evening of my entire life. I have honestly never been so happy. I let out an unceremonious roar of laughter, and I rip off my mask. Christine does not even stir, but Raoul de Chagny lets out a great yell and jumps back a foot, his eyes wide with horror. "Go on, ask me next!" I shout, hardly able to speak. "Ask me. Ask me what happened to my face!"

Raoul looks confused.

Christine stands up, dazedly. "No!" she yells at no one in particular. "This needs to be finished! Raoul!" She turns to him, and nearly falls over with the movement. Hmmm... perhaps I pushed her a little too hard into that wall. That seems very funny to me too. "I loved Erik before you. He was everything to me. A teacher, a mentor, a friend, a lover... yes, everything. I... fell in love with him, when I shouldn't have." She stops, and looks at me with tear-blurred eyes. "I shouldn't have," she says in a softer tone. "You were not ready to love me, Erik, and for that, I am sorry."

I stop laughing.

"But I loved you," she continues. "And I still do, nothing has changed. My love for you did not diminish at all. But... I thought... when I..." She gives her head a little shake, and tries again. "When Raoul said you were not real, I... this used to happen, Erik. When I was a girl. After my mother died, I used to think she was still there, with me. People thought I was making up stories, but I really did see her! I imagined people and places that did not exist. Raoul's family forced me to a doctor. They tried to medicate me, they wanted to send me away... my father would not hear of it. Perhaps I should have been..."

"Christine, this is nothing you have to explain to _him_," Raoul says in a low murmur, but she ignores him.

"I truly thought you were imagined. And that scared me, Erik! That frightened me beyond belief. And see, Raoul is not frightening at all. He is very simple. He would take care of me. And... I grew to care for him. But... not like you, Erik! Never like you."

Raoul is looking bewildered at the fact that Christine is speaking about him as though he is not there. I find that hilarious, also, but I am not laughing anymore.

"Why, Christine," I mutter quietly. "This might be the most intelligent conversation I have ever heard come out of your mouth, ever."

"Yes, I rather think so, too," she responds.

"But I suppose all our progress in the last few moments will be erased if I kill Raoul, will it not?"

"I... yes, I think so."

"This is insane," Raoul says hoarsely. "This is... crazy!"

"Rather like you made your lovely wife-to-be feel," I say happily. "Forcing her to believe she was crazy, when you knew she was not."

"I was trying to get her away from you!" he snaps. "This is pure evil! Look at you!"

.

He did it. He made reference to my face. Damn him. He spoiled my happy mood.

.

I pounce at him, and Christine screams. I pin him against the wall and slam him into the wall, the same way I did with Christine. Honestly, both of these people have ruined my life. What utter nonsense to have ever tried to associate with people. But, to be fair, Christine was mine first. My emotions are changing every second. I do not know what I feel.

"Erik, stop, stop!" Christine screams as I continue pounding his head into the wall. I stop, only to begin choking him. He rasps, and I feel Christine's tiny arms and hands beating at my back. As if that will do absolutely anything. "No! Stop choking him! Release him!"

"No choking," I agree, listening to her once again, and then, in a lovely spur of the moment idea, I grab him and hoist him outside the door. There is a lovely lake. I will drown him instead.

"This was your choice, Christine!" I remind her, as I pull him close. He is struggling now, the water splashing all around me. "You choose him, and I will quite literally blow up this entire opera house, with you both in it. Choose me, and I will only drown him. The rest can live."

She is sobbing, sobbing real tears. "Erik, Erik,"she cried, her hands outstretched. "Let Raoul go, and I will stay with you forever!"

"Yes, of course you will, because he will be dead."

"Let him live, Erik!" she suddenly commands. "He does not deserve to die. He deserves to live without me! He deserves to live, knowing he has lost. Let him live, and live with me!"

"How cruel you have suddenly become to your fiancee!"

"No, no, I am not cruel, but... I don't know what else to do!" She is crying, I am so tired of her always crying.

"You are being very inconsiderate to Raoul de Chagny!"

"I love him, I do," she gasps. "But I love you more! I want to be with you! I... feel something for you!"

I chuckle at her declarations, but my hands lessens just a little bit, and Raoul de Chagny throws his head up, panting.

"We need to discuss this, Christine," I say very seriously. "In the meantime..."

Moving at the speed of light, I drag him back into the house, dripping water everywhere. I have chains somewhere... I had always been planning to use them with Christine, but she is such a vanilla girl...

She follows, looking aghast.

.

I chain Raoul up. He stops struggling. I think he has gone into shock. I told Christine to wait in the main room, so she will not be a distraction. He is very quiet as I chain him up. I actually think he might be crying a little bit, but perhaps that is just from the lake water in which I attempted to drown him.

I return to the main room, where Christine's face is most definitely damp from crying. I have a furtive joy at seeing that, forgetting about my exhaustion with her tears. I love those tear tracks.

"Erik," she says softly.

"Christine," I reply, always the gentlemen.

There is a long silence.

"Are you going to say anything?" she asks meekly.

"Are you? Is there anything you are thinking about?"

"Yes, she replies after a moment. "I was thinking about that night... when I wanted to kill myself."

Out of my many, many nights with Christine, that is the one I like the least. The memory is still jarring to me, for many reasons. When it flickers through my mind, I see the sharp edge of those shears, the crispness of her letter; I can smell the scent she wore that night and how I could not even be man enough for her that night...

"I was remembering how I was feeling," she says very softly. She is twisting her little fingers into the lace of that dreadful costume. It is all torn and blackened from where it was scraped into the wall. "Just utter despair. I felt so stupid. Like I could not understand you, or anyone, or even myself. I thought about all the hopes my father had for me, and how I had disappointed him in all of them."

This is rather baffling to me. Those were the emotions I felt every day for forty years, and I did not try to kill myself every night.

"And when I met you, everything was better." She looks up at me, tears glistening. "I had imagined someone like you, when I was a child. How blessed I was to meet you now."

I sigh. This was very lovely talk. "You imagined someone such as me," I reply scathingly. "With this beautiful face? How honored would your father be to know you are in love with a corpse."

She shrugs. "It depends on how much the corpse loves me back."

"Not at all."

"Lies."

"I cannot take much more of this, Christine."

"You love me."

"Remember when I threw you into a wall? That doesn't seem very _loving_ to me. Surely Raoul would never do that to you."

"No," she says. "He wouldn't. He loves me too, and I love him in a way. But he is not who I want to spend my life with."

I want to keep arguing with her. I want to. But I am tired. My sudden sap in anger has left me feeling very weak, almost dizzy. I am tired of these emotional shifts, and I am all too willing to blame Christine. I wish Raoul had not been born. I wish he had never been alive.

"You are a very unhealthy girl, Christine."

"I know."

.


	7. Chapter 7

We have a nice talk, my lovely little obsession and I. When I say we, I mostly mean she, because I did not do much talking. I am tired of talking, tired of explaining and justifying and all that other nonsense. She talks and talks and talks about her father and her childhood and Raoul and me and how she feels, and it is all so dreadfully _boring_ and yet interesting at the same time. I let her speak until I really cannot take much more, and then I tell her she ought to go to bed. She stands up and insists she will not go to bed without me. So I follow her in, and we fall asleep next to each other. Neither of us seem to remember Raoul de Chagny in the other room.

I find that very, very funny.

.

I have dreams that involve drowning. I have never dreamed of such foolishness before. It is a relief to wake up and take a breath of cool air and know I am not in above my head.

.

Christine stirs when I wake up and her leg reaches out and entwines with mine as her arm also stretches out as if searching for me. I am moved for a minute, before a sudden dark thought enters.

I roll her over and her eyes jolt open in shock. "Did you sleep with Raoul?" I ask.

She blinks a few times, as if trying to register her surroundings, but I do not have time for that. "Did you sleep with Raoul?" I ask again, my voice louder.

"Oh-Erik, you've already asked me this!" she answers, and I shake her in frustration that she will not answer my question, my simple question- what a question! "No! No! Erik, no, I did not!"

"Yes, you did!"

"No!"

"I do not believe you!"

"Why did you have to wake me up like this," she moans, and leans forward, burying her face in my chest. Her hands creep under the hem of my shirt, and I flinch a little at her touch.

"There would have been no need for it, had there been no Raoul," I reply rather icily.

"There is no need of Raoul," she says imploringly, moving her hands around my skin. My brain is not equipped to handle this kind of sexual assault so early in the morning. Already my heart is racing and I think it must be so silly that a man of my age reacts like a pre-pubescent boy when confronted with a woman's touch.

"You are distracting me," I huff.

"I would just like to make this morning more pleasant," she says simply.

It is too early to be so angry with her. I want to be. I want to be furious with her. As she looks up at me, I reach and trace the cuts on her forehead with my finger. She closes her eyes, whether in pain or pleasure, I didn't know.

"I do not love you, Christine," I say softly. "Because I am not capable of loving."

She keeps her eyes closed. "My head hurts," she sniffs.

I sigh a little. It is very possible I gave her a mild concussion from throwing her too hard against the wall. Perhaps I should not have made her go to sleep. "You will have some very lovely marks on your face for a while."

"Will they scar?"

I try my best to bite my tongue at this delicious comment. "I wouldn't think so," I say flatly. "They're not deep. No worries, nothing to mar your pretty face. I would not want that."

She gives a weak smile. "So concerned about faces," she murmurs.

"So did you sleep with Raoul?"

"Oh Erik... no. I did not sleep with Raoul. How can I prove it to you?"

"You can't."

Her eyelids flutter a bit at that, as if she had expected that answer. "What makes you think I slept with Raoul?"

I hesitate. So she is asking me how I feel now, is she? I feel strange divulged such a personal piece of knowledge that has potential to hurt me. "They way you reached out your arm, this morning," I say slowly. "As if it was second nature. As if you have been doing it with someone for quite some time. Who were you reaching out for, Christine?"

I hate how bitter I sound. I hate the quality of my voice as I say those words.

She reaches her hand out to me, so much like the event I had just described. "I never even spent a night with Raoul," she says gently. "The only man I've ever reached out to is you."

"A man," I choke. "I am no man."

She looks away from me for a second, and I think perhaps she is ashamed of me, perhaps she is finally beginning to realize the truth of who I am and what I am. She shakes her head from side to side very slowly, like a dog wringing water out of it's ears when she turns back to me.

"Erik," she says very slowly, as if talking to a dull child. "You must not grow angry with me... but where is Raoul?"

It makes me angry... but I am so tired of anger.

"I don't know," I say childishly. "I locked him up somewhere. He is alive. He is away from you. Do you miss him already?"

Christine furrows her brow at me, and then winces when it irritates the scrapes on her head. "You did not let him go?"

The tenderness I had begun to feel for her is evaporating at this line of questioning. "I did not," I huff. "Do you think he would have left so easily?"

"Perhaps," she says. She winces again. I begin to think that maybe those marks aren't so lovely after all. I begin to hate looking at them.

I wish they weren't there.

"Are you asking me to let him go?" I question slowly. "Are you asking to see him? Tell me what it is you are asking of me, Christine. Tell me what it is that you want from me."

She swings her legs over the side of the bed abruptly, nearly startling me. "I want to talk to him," she says at once. "With you. I want you to come with me."

"Oh no," I say swiftly. "I do not wish to speak with him."

"You will not be," she says. "I will be speaking to him. But I want you with me."

.

The foolish girl accompanies me as I lead her to where I have previously locked up Raoul de Chagny. Halfway there, I begin to wonder if perhaps the boy did not make it through the night - I have fun imagining that for a moment, picturing Christine's face as she sees his body - but then I cannot stop seeing the scrapes on her pretty forehead, those ugly scrapes on her pretty forehead, and I chase the whole scene from my mind.

Raoul de Changy looks much worse this morning. His entire neck has bruised an ugly, purple color that does not match his eyes at all. He stares at us as we approach, squinting at us with a dull expression.

Christine instantly drops to her knees beside him, and I grit my teeth angrily, but I do not say anything. I am tired of anger. Shouting at her now will do nothing.

.

Sometime, something happens in my brain.

It is like I shift out of the recurring reality and instead adapt a third-view, as if I am watching this whole scene from the rafters. It has happened to me as a child, it has happened to me very often... and very often, I also have a difficult time coming back.

But Christine is here and Raoul is here, and it is very important for me to be in this moment.

So I come back.

.

"Christine," he rasps, staring at her with his expressionless, glazed eyes. I wonder if he has slept at all, and I take comfort in the fact that I slept quite well, with _his Christine_ by my side, how I hate the sound of her name on his worthless tongue!

"Raoul," she says, and even a voice as gorgeous as hers rings with such ugliness when she says a name such as his. "Are you ill?"

He looks at her as though she could not be more stupid to ask such a mindless question. "I have been better," he says in that scratchy voice. "Please, ask him to untie me."

She pays no attention to his request, but takes her small hand and touches his face. "Raoul," she says softly, as though she is trying to pretend I am not over her shoulder, watching her every move. "You need to get to a doctor."

He chuckles, but it's a miserable sound. "You don't suppose there is one, down here?"

Her hand moves upwards, shifting the hair out of his eyes, and I cannot take my own eyes away from that gesture. There is something about it... something that unnerves me.

"We will get you upstairs very soon," she says gently. "We will take you back upstairs, but only if you promise me something, Raoul, please."

"I am making no promises," he says stubbornly, and Christine shakes her head with a unhappy smile on her face.

"This is something you must promise me, Raoul. When we take you back upstairs, you must stay there. You must not come back down here again."

"Is that a threat?"

"No, Raoul... please. It is what I am asking."

I turn away from the both of them.

My mouth tastes funny. I think I am going to be sick.

"You just need to stay upstairs," I can hear her saying. "We will take you back up there, Raoul. It is where you belong. And I... I belong down here. With Erik. You were wrong. He was never in my head."

"I was trying to save you," comes his defeated whisper.

"You have always been trying to save me," she says in a soft, hesitant voice. "Why can you not just accept me as I am? Perhaps I am fine with my flaws... perhaps I am fine with my imaginary world."

Raoul lets out an awful, awful sound. "Why choose the imaginary when you can choose something real?"

"Oh, Raoul," she says back, her voice breaking.

.

I can hardly handle it, my chest is constricting as though someone has grabbed me and is squeezing me incredibly tightly. Each time I go to inhale, I struggle against choking. There is a hole inside of me and it is violently sucking all the breath from inside of me. My brain argues with itself, to regain composure and to stop this dreadful feeling that is eating me alive.

_Their soft voices are killing me_!

I can hardly breathe.

_Love, love, love,_ chants in my head like an tantalizing mantra. I cannot take the tenderness in her voice. I cannot stop seeing her hand pushing his hair out of his face, I cannot stop seeing his dead eyes watching her every move, his determination to bring her back to reality..._back to reality..._

_._

I turn sharply around. "Move away, Christine," I command at once, and she only hesitates for a moment before she rises uncertainly to her feet and away from Raoul. I deftly untie him, avoiding eye contact. Mustering all of my courage, I help the pathetic, drowned rat onto his feet.

It makes me feel better to call him these things in my head, at least.

He hobbles alongside of me and Christine extends her arms out to him to help him. I do not even flinch as I see the creamy white of her skin sparkle in the dim light as her hands caress his. There is simply no room in me to be disturbed by this heart-breakng behavior - I am still struggling too hard to breathe.

If Christine is suspicious of my behavior, she makes no sign of it, but follows my every move until we reach the end of the tunnel. As we stand on the threshold, she comes beside me and whispers quietly, "Are we just to leave him out here and hope he is found? That concerns me a little. He does not look well enough to make it to a doctor by himself. Should I wait here while you deliver him?"

I give a grim smile at the innocence of her question. "Of course not, Christine," I say. "You are going with him."

The scrapes on her head stare at me, accusing me. "Going with him?"

"Yes. Make sure you take him to a doctor. And you, also. Take care of yourselves."

"Are you sure you want me going with him, alone?" she asks, squinting at me a little bit. "Can you not come with me?"

My eyes are burning, like before tears appear, but I fight the urge with an unbelievable sense of avoidance at all cost. "Of course not, Christine. I will stay down here. And you will go with Raoul. Please be sure to visit a doctor with him."

"Alright," she says, a little unsure. "Then I will come back down."

I smile again - at least, I think I do. But I do not say anything to her until she has stepped over the edge of the tunnel with Raoul. She turns back to me, keeping her little hand wrapped tight around him, and I try my best not to focus on that little bit of contact she shares so intimately with him in front of my eyes. But once I see it, it is impossible to un-see - like looking through a two-way mirror and hoping to see yourself, but only seeing another man, another man, another man.

"Erik," she says as she holds onto him. "Will you be here waiting for me when I come back?"

She is far enough away from me now. "Well, you see, Christine," I say very gently. "You will not be coming back."

Raoul makes a noise, but she is oblivious to it, her eyes creasing in worry at my words.

.

When I stare at her, I have a flashback.

It's from when I first brought her down here, many moons, for our lessons. She had only been down here a couple of times, and her eyes still filled with fear as we made the way to my home. I remember reaching my arm out to her to help her, and recoiling at the last minute, afraid she would reject it. But her eyes caught mine, and as she stared at me, she reached out and grabbed the back of my jacket. She fell shortly after, and her dress was a faded cream, staining it with bits of color, and we had pushed the lesson back a half hour as I sat beside her and so gently, scrubbed the stain out.

.

She has that same look in her eyes now, the same look I remember from a much younger, much different, Christine.

But when she speaks, she is not the same.

"Erik," she says, and I see her hand clutch on Raoul's clothes, holding him tighter. "Do not start this again. I will be coming back, whether you like it or not."

"Whether I like it or not," I repeat very sadly. "I hope you would never get the idea that I would not like it at all."

"Listen, you," she says, and her eyes narrow at me. "I will take Raoul to get help. And then I am returning. And you cannot stop me."

"This cannot continue," I say and out of the corner of my eye, I see Raoul de Chagny beginning to droop next to Christine, his head lolling to the side. "This is not... this is not... nothing! This is not up for discussion! Just leave, Christine!"

Christine looks at me, her doe eyes filled with a mixture of emotions I am not foolish enough to attempt to interpret. Very easily, she releases Raoul and he snaps back into consciousness, looking around with a haggard sense of bewilderness, watching as she approaches me very slowly, like I am some wild beast that she is hoping will be tame. I cannot look at her; I stare at the ground like some pathetic, worthless dog.

I wait for the lecture. I wait for her scuffed up face to hover in front of me, demanding to be seen. I wait for words that I know are coming. But she is silent.

And she kisses me.

.

I have kissed her countless times, tasted the breath from her lips, felt the suppleness of her young skin; I have seen every inch of her, I have explored every part, I have left not a bit untouched; she has returned the favor to me, she has warmed me, she has needed me; and yet there is something about this interaction now that feels as though I still have much to learn about her. There is something about it that tastes almost unfufilled- not a whole giving over of essence, but only a preview of something. She is close to me... I tangle my hand in her hair and I feel her lips part beneath mine and I can feel the movement of her body as she draws breath, and I still avoid her eyes. She kisses me, and I feel like I am a thirsty man on a hot day and once I start drinking, I cannot stop until I am sated. And yet... she pulls away. I do not look at her. She is foiling my plan yet again, she is trying to ruin the stronghold I _must_ create around myself!

"You do not need me, Christine," I remind her softly. "Let me go."

And I mean the words more than anything I have ever said to her in my life.

She steps back, surprised. There is hurt in her eyes, and it hurts me to see it. The marks on her face are still there, like a forceful nudge that brings my memory back to reality when I begin to slip into the recesses of my mind, pleading _why can she not stay? why can she not love you? _and I see the marks and I remember, holy hell do I remember...

I do not ever want to see those marks again! I do not want to see what I have done to her! I do not want to shake her awake as she opens her eyes each morning, demanding words I do not want to hear! This girl is broken because of me, and I love her! I love every part of her, and I have never been taught how to love, never believed that I could love, and loving her now has brought her more misery than anything else I could possibly have offered her.

_I do not want to hurt her anymore!_

She steps back, and this is my chance, the only moment that I hope she will not oppose. As she steps back, I turn to my spot in the wall that I can easily close, and I leave her standing there. I leave her and it is the hardest thing I will ever do.

"Go with the boy, Christine," I say. "You deserve to be happy. I truly... want you to be happy."

And her pink lips move, and she is saying, she is speaking in that lovely voice that I fell hopelessly in love with, but I am not longer listening, for if I hear that voice, my resolve may crumble, and so I shut the space and it is surreal moment.

Sudden darkness where Raoul and Christine had been only moments before.

.

It was really quick and simple, really. I know that scenes in my past have led myself to believe that I cannot complete a scenario without causing some sort of dramatic mayhem or attention-seeking closure. But I am a tired. And this is very simple.

Because I really do not want to hurt her anymore. I do not want her to constantly be in battle with me, I do not want her to suffer. I do not want to ever see those marks on her forehead that I created, and I do not want to see if they scar her lovely skin forever. I cannot stomach that- I cannot handle thinking that my emotional scars I have inflicted upon her have somehow risen to the surface to display to the world what I have done to her, what have I done to her...

When I kissed her, I felt the most extraordinary of revelations, not one brought on by her incessant pleading, not one brought on by my continuous convincing, but something that spurned entirely from that brief, poignant interaction with her.

You see, maybe I do love Christine Daae.

And when a man loves a woman, he does not shove her into walls. He does not force her hand to make decisions she is not ready to make. He is not jealous, he is not unkind. He is not sharp of tongue and he is not manipulative, controlling, or otherwise temperamental. No matter what I have loosely debated on in the past, my actions have never shown love to Christine, and I _hate that_. I hate that I do not know _how _to keep my word when I say I will try to love her. Instead, I gave her false promises and consistently broke my word to her, denying my affections, overruling her desperation, and exploiting all of it for the sake of my _lovely doll._

When she gave me that kiss, I felt a sort of remorse. Not because I couldn't love her - but because I chose that I couldn't love her. It was a decision that I brought upon myself, that I have been holding her responsible for ever since. I want her to know that I truly, love her.

And the only way I can prove it is by letting her go.

.


	8. Chapter 8

I have dreams about the way she used to sob, the way her big, doe eyes would look at me as though I was expected to do something about it. But when I wake up, my lovely underground home is completely silent; no sounds of Christine. No sounds of music.

.

It is strange.

Last time I locked myself away from her, I was convinced it was a solid decision I was making. I was very desperate to prove that I did not love her, so anxious to reassure myself that a simple obsession was something I could break myself away from. That was a dark time in my life, filled with boiling anger and emotional complexes that I could hardly understand.

But this is very different. This is not three months of shutting myself away like a child. This is very solemn, very quiet. This will be longer than three months. This will be eons and eons of pain.

Or so I tell myself.

.

I remember the look in her eyes on _that night_, when I first saw her in her black nightgown, when her eyes were completely dead. I remember the fear at seeing her like that, the nausea that had overcome me when I read the goodbye note on the side of her bed. I remember how terrified I was in that moment, to realize that had I not been outside of her door, I could have lost her forever. She could have bled to death right next to me and I might not have known. I shall never forget the feelings it stirred in me that night - I shall never forget the way her eyes looked.

The way her eyes looked is how I feel right now.

.

It must have not even been a fortnight before it happens. I heard it, from the main room, while I was in my music room. Slowly, I rise, unaccustomed to this violation of my senses, strung by a lack of curiosity at what exactly this might be.

Quite sincerely, I have no idea what I was actually expecting. It is like a constant circle of pain and joy. I am beginning to think I am attracted to the pain just as much as the joy. But there she stands.

"Christine?" I say dumbly.

She smiles, almost nervously. "Hello, Erik."

I do not have the poisonous response of last time, nor the heart-stopping reaction like I did when I saw her at the costume ball. Instead, I feel rather numb, like there is little else that could happen in this disregarded world of mine that would surprise me. Perhaps a very tiny part of me was hoping she would return - but no! Releasing her was for her own good, and for mine too... for her to return brings me no joy when I begin to taste the bitter cycle starting all over again with just one look into her eyes.

Her fingers twist together in the folds of her pale pink gown, I am suddenly struck with how much older she looks. Has she has done something different with her hair... No, it's something about her eyes, I am certain.

This is unimaginable. There is no way I am to seek any comfort in her return now. I feel sick, like I am about to wake up from some strange nightmare.

"Erik?" she says softly, and there is worry in her eyes. I must look awful. I bring my hand up to my face nervously and I uncomfortably, I note the lack of mask. Of course I look awful.

I try to be normal. I try to handle this like any regular, self-respecting man would. "But..." My flawless throat dies away, and I am forced to try again. "But I... why...?"

_Why did she come back?_

She looks around, and she is quiet for a long moment.

_Why did she come back... again?_

My heart is thudding in my chest. My senses are slowly catching up to me, and I realize that she is here, she is truly, truly here! The hole inside of me is somehow closing, and I am finding it is easier to breathe than it has been, all this is gathering within me and I cannot keep my pulse from racing.

"I suppose I cannot speak for you, but I am... tired of this." She is looking down. "Why can't I just leave you? Why can we not leave each other alone?"

"Why indeed?" I blurt out without thinking, my nervousness breaking through. I cannot understand why I suddenly feel so anxious, why her sudden appearance has thrown me in such a way. Why can she not leave me alone? _Why indeed?_

"I can't leave," she whispers, looking distraught. "I can't leave you alone, Erik. I can't go back to the normal world, knowing that there is this one, here with you."

"You knew this world existed, even after you had made your mind up to stay in the other one," I retort coolly, unable to accept her words without lashing out in some way. "And you seem relatively at peace with your decision, as well."

"What do you want me to say?" she asks weakly, holding her hands out to me like an offering. "Only to forgive me for fearing what I do not understand?"

I laugh humorlessly at the thought of what Christine Daae does not understand. "Where is Raoul?" I ask, bitterly despising myself for not wanting to know the answer. Despising myself for so many, many things.

"He is recovering, at his parents house," she says, as if she can relax the resentment in my tone. "Why are you asking about Raoul? Why are you not asking about me?"

"You," I sigh, unable to look into her eyes. "What is there left to ask about you?"

It is happening all over again... she is going to stay, she is going to leave, I am going to kill myself from the tirades of a broken soul.

I glance up at her, to see her move slightly to the corner of the room. "Where is the picture of me?" she asks. "The one you drew? Where are my things that were here?"

"I burned it," I lie.

Her eyes question me. "I don't want to believe that."

I attempt to shrug, as if her doubtfulness does not faze me. I find it odd how uncomfortable I feel at uttering even the smallest of lies to Christine, which is extraordinarily baffling, considering the amount of times I have lied to her without a second thought.

"What are you thinking about?" she asks, her knuckles white with the force she is crushing her own hands. I wonder briefly if she is as nervous as I am. Then I wonder why the hell we are nervous at all?

For a moment, I try to think of how to word what I want to say without falling into ridiculous old habits. "I am confused... as to why you are here... as to why you keep coming back."

"Because you don't love me," she says stubbornly.

"Perhaps," I say evasively.

"I want to know if you really don't love me anymore," she says suddenly, her eyes wide, her fingers finally unclenched. "Because if you really don't, I'll leave! I'll leave, I promise, and I won't come back!"

"I find this hard to believe, considering no matter what I do, I can't get rid out you!" I shoot back, unable to bite my tongue.

"You seem to try hard to get rid of me, but I never see you protesting when I come back!"

"Well, what am I doing now?"

"Confusing me!" she shouts, crossing her arms.

I try hard to glare at her, but inside, I am rather happy that we are arguing again. It seems very familiar, very comfortable. Unwittingly, my eyes travel downward just to see what she's wearing. Beneath that pink gown, I know the exact color of her skin... "I think I have been very clear," I say, shaking my head slightly to disrupt my sexualized pattern of thoughts that have no place here.

"You shoved me out the door without a goodbye," she huffs. "There was nothing clear about that."

"You are here because you are disappointed with my goodbye?" I say, rolling my eyes. "Quite honestly, I think that was the best thing I have ever done for this relationship!"

Now I am slightly angry with her, because she does not understand the enormous revelations I had upon letting her go. She does not understand the sense of accomplishment I was finally able to feel upon re-analyzing my own feelings and reasons for my actions. For once in my sorry life, I was proud of myself - for once, I felt positive that I was doing the right thing. And now she stands here, threatening all of that just by being here!

"You said you wanted me to be happy," she said quietly. "Didn't you say that, Erik?"

I pretend not to hear her. "Every second you are with me is a second that is hurting you. Didn't you say yourself, how much I destroyed you? Didn't you say that- Raoul - was the one who took care of you when I locked you out?"

"So stop locking me out!" she says.

"I can't-"

"Just stop locking me out!"

"I CAN'T!" I scream, frustrated that once again she is pushing me to this point. My hands reach up, because up until this moment, I have actually forgotten that I am not wearing a mask. I _hate_ that this is the center of my anger, my insecurity, my sense of fault! I hate that I have done something good in my life, and yet she is here again, pushing me, prodding me, reminding me of my flaws! "Look at my face, Christine! _This_ is the course of all my problems. _This_ is the sole reason why I cannot love you the way you want me to! You always seem to forget that, and silly me - it causes me to forget too! I want you to be happy, Christine, I really do, and I am trying to keep you away from me so you have a chance at that!"

She stares at me for a moment, before she turns and sits on the sofa. I watch her, bemused. "Come sit by me," she gestures at once, patting the seat beside her.

I approach warily, as if it is a trap. "Why?"

She sighs. "There is nothing suspicious about sitting on a sofa, Erik."

"With you, there must be," I mutter, but I obey, helpless.

_Obsession, obsession, obsession._

I can't get away from her. It is impossible to disobey a direct order from her. I am a slave, a slave to her. I cannot resist. I cannot resist. I am a slave.

She rests her head on my shoulder. Gruffly, automatically, I wrap my arm around her. She feels safe, like home. I should have known the dangers of obsessing over her from the very beginning - to be fair, I _did_ know the dangers, and yet here I am.

"Remember how funny we were when I first started coming down here?" she asks, seemingly nonchalant about all the emotions she has just stirred in me.

"Funny?" I repeat, eyebrows raised.

"Yes, funny. So frightened of each other. So unhappy in our separate worlds."

The girl still frightens me. Has she so little sense of what terrifies me?

The air around us is silent. I hear a melody in my head, and I wish I could write it down. It sounds exactly how I feel right now, but perhaps it is a good thing I cannot keep it - I do not wish to relive this feeling. I still feel anxious and sick and now slightly exasperated.

"Your face has distorted you thinking," she says.

I let out a derisive burst of laughter. "You think?"

"Yes, based on how people have treated you in the past. But I wish you wouldn't do that with me."

I hate everything about this conversation. Everything. "What makes you different?"

"I don't know, Erik," she says. "Tell me, what does make me different? Why me?"

"Why you, what?"

"Why did you become obsessed with me?"

"I am so tired of these conversation," I say testily. "I... I can't talk about this anymore, Christine."

"Of course," she says instantly. "Of course."

I expect her to attempt to keep going, to push me in some way, but she is still on my shoulder. I cannot see her face... I wish I could see her face.

As if she can read my mind, she pulls away from me, and she kisses me, and I will never stop being surprised by the sensation of skin against mine, the disregard of the mask that I have been forced to wear my whole life. Every part of me tightens, as if this is an attack, and despite being the most unwilling I have ever been in my life, I pull away.

"Christine," I say. "Why are you really here?"

She looks up at me. "Because..." She bites her lip. "Because I love you. And... I want you to love me, too. I can't let go of you. I don't want to let go of you. You said I was unhealthy. Maybe I am. But I feel more unhealthy without you. You said you didn't want to talk about this. Let's not talk about it."

"You can't use me as a crutch," I say at once. Every time Christine tries to talk about how she feels, I see a mental image of her when she held the shears next to her, crying that no one wanted her in that lacy nightgown...

"Erik! Stop!"

"No, you stop!" I say. "Christine, I will never make you happy! I want you to be happy! Hell, why are you destroying the one good thing I've done in my life?"

She buries her head in my chest, growling. "I swear, Erik... Please. Can we stop talking?"

I silence myself. Inwardly, I am rather pleased with the way I am handling this whole conversation. I feel I have acted very well thus far... "So what, are we just going to sit here in silence forever, sweeping all the problems under the rug?"

She lifts her head up. "I think I'd like to sing."

.

Her voice is soft and light, perhaps afraid to push after weeks of not singing. I let her choose a couple of arias until I decide to start playing my own works, and she follows along cautiously, her ear adapted to my sound. As she sings, the hole in my chest seems to recede somewhat, as if her voice is actually filling me up, repairing the wounds I have inflicted upon myself.

I am a bad man, and I did not love her very well. I did not treat her well. At this point, it is practically a sin for me to allow this to continue at all. I do not want to look at her, because I do not want to see how deeply I have manifested this obsession, this subtle curiosity that allowed to me invade into her music, her life, and ultimately, her heart.

Truly, the best thing I ever did for Christine Daae was to send her away.

But maybe the best thing she ever did for me was to come back.

.

She rolls over in bed, and I have already decided that I will not disrobe her tonight, that I will make this a gentle night to spend with her, when she reaches over and peels off my mask.

"Christine," I say warningly.

"Hush, it's dark," she says carelessly. "You know, I thought when I was trying to love you, that you never spoke of the mask because you understood how little it mattered. Now I think you were really avoiding it because it was the whole problem."

"Are we going to analyze again?" I ask.

"You like that somebody cares enough to analyze," she says saintly, and I tense at her raw words. "You know how I know this, Erik? Because that is how I used to feel."

I look up at the ceiling while she talks. There are shadows created by the voluptuous curve of her curls that throw dark patterns up and down as her head slightly moves. It is mesmerizing. I am obsessed with it.

"How did I get so smart?" she giggles, and she pulls slightly at me to kiss the side of my face. There is no way I will ever get used to this feeling... this feeling of being loved...

"You are not smart," I correct at once, and she only giggles again.

.

She wakes up and she wants to listen to my music. I am a slave to her; how can I resist?

I play her vibrant chords of Bach on my violin and she sits on the floor below me, seemingly entranced, and for several glorious moments, I pretend like she is just coming down for lessons like she used to, before any of this happened, before any of us got in the way of what I wanted, what she wanted. Sometimes, I still see the gaze in her eyes _that night_, when her heart was hopeless and her lovely orbs filled with such a familiar despair.

I stop playing and her lovely eyes blink. "Christine," I say. "There is something wrong with me."

"There is nothing wrong with you, Erik," she replies automatically, but I am already shaking my head.

"There is. Many of the things wrong with me I share with you. Like you, I have been lonely, forgotten, despised, neglected, unloved. And I have crashed in upon myself. And so determined I was to save you from the same fate, that I have now pulled you in with me."

She is still smiling. "But I do not mind," she says, holding her hand out. "It does not feel so bad with you."

"So do you still feel neglected, unloved?" I whisper, hating myself. Hating myself in all that I am. I am a weak, weak man. I will never be enough for Christine. I will never love her right. I will never learn how to love. Every time I think there is growth between us, something happens to remind me that I am still right back at the start.

"I feel happier here than anywhere else," she replies dispassionately. "There is nothing wrong with us being together."

_There is_, _though._

Slowly, I put my violin back up and this time choose the haunting tonality of Liszt, who writes of romance I will never understand. Her eyes goes glassy once again; she is mine for the taking.

.

We keep putting it off; avoiding the topic altogether. Instead, there is almost a lull in the way our life continues, as if nothing had broken it apart at all. She wants to sing, and I cannot stop her. I cannot stop myself, and I let her sing and it almost feels like the way the past did, when there were no feelings around and we did not argue about what it is to love or not love.

No more talking - our dialogue has become boring and repetitive. There is nothing more to be said to each other. She refuses to leave, and I refuse to kick her out. Is that love?

.

"Christine," I say. "You said you could not do to Raoul what I did to you."

She glances up from the table. "I did not want to do that, no," she says, shrugging a little bit. "But I did not... cut him off the way you did to me. We spoke of it. He knows how I feel."

"And he is obviously fine with this," I say derisively, shaking my head in disbelief. "And he will not be down here again."

Something about her gaze is very far away, as if she is not really looking at me. "No," she says certainly. "He will not be down again."

"How can you be so sure?" I persist. "There is so much you are not telling me."

"I am telling you," she says bluntly. "And I am sure."

.

I am not gentle. She is half asleep, and I shake her awake. Her large eyes stare at me questioningly, and I pull her up so I can remove her nightclothes.

Strangely, she smiles, as if this is something good and makes the work go faster. "I knew you would miss me," she says softly, opening her arms to me. "I was hoping you would break soon."

Her words are not what I want to hear, as if this must be some sort of utterable weakness, as if she were in control of this master plan. This new Christine is mature and seemingly wise, but I do not like it as much as I ought to. I want to be back in control, I want to play the music that makes her eyes go blank, I want to find the parts of her that makes her sigh my name, I want to pretend that there is no such thing as _love_...

She melts into me, soft, unyielding. Her eyes do not leave my face, my treacherous, unforgiving face that makes it almost impossible to believe she could ever be soft to me at all. Her eyes are totally trusting - too trusting. I do not deserve this.

"Christine," I murmur, my lips close to her ear as she shivers, her mouth slightly open in anticipation. "You could have stayed away. You could have stayed above at the opera. You could have stayed with Raoul..."

"Yes, I could have," she agrees at once.

"But... you did not."

"I did not," she repeats, the words like poetry from her little lips. I think of the time she called herself 'plain', and I could not, in this moment, think of a single thing about her that seemed even somewhat plain. I touch the corner of her eyelids with my skeletal hands, my tarnished skin looking yet even more miserable than normal next to hers. Upsettingly so, I am already aroused enough to end her foreplay, but I continue to stare at her, touch her, obsess over every single little detail that does not in the least bit seem _plain..._

"It is so nice to be with you again," she whispers, and her words send delicious shivers through me, and I decide that I am already much too vile a man to be forced to continue with her in this state. She doesn't seem to mind, though.

She never does.

.


End file.
